By Jon Pelto, from Wait What:
The award for political pandering clearly belongs to one person and one person alone. Connecticut’s Republican State Chairman Jerry Labriola Jr. who ran and lost to Congressman Rosa DeLauro in 2010 has proven, without a doubt, that nothing should ever stand in the way of political pandering.
DeLauro was in Italy for a family wedding and a vacation when the storm hit. While she reports that she monitored the response effort from abroad and participated in numerous phone calls with federal and state officials she didn’t actually come back to Connecticut until the end of the week.
The Republican Chairman called Rosa DeLauro’s action “a perfect example of how out of touch Congresswoman DeLauro is with the residents of her district and the needs of our state.”
He went to claim that not only should DeLauro have returned to Connecticut immediately (even though Members of Congress have no role in disaster relief) but she should not have been on vacation in the first place.
Labriola’s press statement begins with the view that “The Congresswoman should never have been abroad to begin with…” He then added "on the other hand, given her continued endorsement of President Obama's failed economic policies, perhaps our state would be better served if DeLauro chose to take a permanent vacation.”
It could certainly be dismissed as the absurd ranting of an “over-eager” political operative who has no shame and is looking to score points at the expense of the people who are really suffering from the Hurricane’s impact, but the Republican leader was not the only one using such outrageous language.
A Hartford Courant blog claimed that “DeLauro was vacationing on the posh Amalfi coast when the tropical storm hit, leaving a swath of devastation in several towns in her district.”
Another columnist wrote that DeLauro was in her “Hotel Poseidon lair on the Amalfi Coast” and concluded that “In this maximum hour of suffering for thousands of constituents, where in the world is Rosa DeLauro?”
1 comment:
Rosa DeLauro came to tour the most heavily impacted areas along the shoreline as soon as she got a flight back.
Keep in mind that her work is pre- and post-catastrophe, and she does that well. She has already demanded that UI not increase rates to cover their losses, and called upon the Army Corps of Engineers to initiate a review of the storm damage.
I don't think people are aware of the amount of behind-the-scenes work it takes to do things in politics. They only see the rants of the talentless on dinnertime television.
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