Category — Friends of Peter Roskam

I learned from reading Illinois Review that Peter Roskam’s one-time boss Tom Delay had been in Lombard recently to “celebrate Jesus” and to help kick off a kooky website that Jesus has apparently recently established in Wheaton.

I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall at that meeting and I wonder if Tom explained how Jesus, working through the prophet Jack Abramoff, led him to make it possible for garment workers in the U.S. territory of the Northern Marianas Islands to legally work in horrendous sweatshop conditions, free from interference by the Congress or U.S. labor regulators. Delay reportedly described the situation on the Islands as a “a perfect petri dish of capitalism”. Apparently Delay and Jesus hoped to eventually phase in these types of working conditions here on the mainland.

Now don’t get me wrong. As much as I disagree with Peter Roskam, he seems to be a person of honesty and integrity and worthy of respect. I don’t wish to smear him by association with someone he worked for a long time ago. What I am hoping for, what I want in my Congressman, is for him to stand up to the kind of intolerance being promoted by folks like the Culture Campaign and to temper his insistence on market-only solutions and to work to protect those who are vulnerable in society, like those workers in the Northern Marianas. The only aim of a post like this is to goad him in that direction. When I see that kind of movement maybe I’ll change the name of this site to “Re-elect RubberStampRoskam”

So Peter Roskam has endorsed John McCain, war hero and everybody’s favorite kooky Grandpa, for the Republican nomination. I have to admit that I think Peter made the right call on this one. Don’t get me wrong - I don’t really want to see John McCain anywhere near the oval office but I think he’s a person of substance, unlike the front-runners, and I can’t help but wonder if we wouldn’t be much better off as a nation if McCain and not Bush had won in 2000. I disagree with him more often than not but I like his independence. He’s way too much of a hawk for me, but then so is Hillary Clinton. There are two other Republican candidates I like and respect: Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee, but I’m neither a Baptist nor a Libertarian and I find their views too extreme. So, as much as it pains me to admit it, I think Peter chose wisely. McCain seems the least bad of the Republican contenders. Maybe he’s just less scary because he’s a known quantity. It kind of warms my heart too, to know that James Dobson would never vote for him.

On November 5th, President Bush bestowed on former Congressman Henry Hyde of the Sixth Congressional District the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award that the President can confer. In awarding the medal, the President remarked:

“He used his persuasive powers for noble causes. He stood for a strong and purposeful America — confident in freedom’s advance, and firm in freedom’s defense. He stood for limited, accountable government, and the equality of every person before the law. He was a gallant champion of the weak and forgotten, and a fearless defender of life in all its seasons.”

Pardon me a moment while I dry my eyes…

Hyde is in fine company. Others who have received this award from President Bush include:

• Noted neoconservative crackpots Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz, godfathers of the faction that promoted our glorious and freedom producing invasion, occupation, and destruction of Iraq and is presently lobbying for our upcoming glorious and fredom producing bombing and destruction of Iran, and possibly the world as we know it.
• George Tenet, the man responsible for our crack prewar intelligence regarding Iraq, the many weapons of mass destruction that we recovered there, and the subsequently proven links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.
• Tommy Franks, military genius and architect of Operation Iraqi Freedom, who brought the war to a rapid conclusion and is in no small measure responsible for the peace and freedom enjoyed by the people of Iraq today.
• L. Paul Bremer, the 2nd Viceroy of Iraq, the brilliant administrator who presided over the reconstruction, virtually overnight, of Iraq after the war and the establishment of its highly successful constitutional democracy, all the while ensuring that the war was profitable for American contractors and other looters.

Are you noticing a pattern here? It’s really a shame the poor bastard can’t award a freedom medal to himself.

But I digress. We’re here to honor Henry Hyde’s unflagging efforts in the cause of Freedom.

Freedom has been on the march for the past several years and through it all, Henry Hyde, has stood by our President, unprotesting and obedient, as he has advanced the cause of freedom through his program of preemptive war, torture and rendition, endless extra-judicial detention, domestic spying, and extra-constitutional enhancement of presidential power. Yes, Henry Hyde did his part to ensure that the Congress never stood in the way of the President in his quest. And when it came time for him to step aside, he hand-picked our own Peter Roskam to carry on the fight for freedom in his stead.

Had I more time, I’d tell of Henry’s efforts for freedom during the Reagan years but, alas, I have homework. Perhaps later.

In the meantime, thank you Henry, and get well soon.

Peter and dick.