Answer to Armed Services Chairmen Turned Industry Lobbyists

 

Answer to Armed Services Chairmen Turned Industry Lobbyists

 

Danielle Brian, who runs POGO, has released an unusual post at POGO's website; it is at http://www.pogo.org/blog/2013/06/20130625-answer-to-armed-services-chairmen-turned-industry-lobbyists.html.

 

To explain briefly: Two former chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees (former representative Ike Skelton (D-MO) and former senator John Warner (R-VA)) sent Danielle a letter complaining that she referred, in a positive manner, to their work in something called the Coalition for Fiscal and National Security (at http://www.pgpf.org/issues/coalition-fiscal-and-national-security), which consists of 15 bigwigs from past defense, foreign policy and finance eras.

 

If you care to sort through the imbroglio, find the Skelton/Warner letter of complaint at http://pogoarchives.org/m/ns/ltr-from-cfns-20130611.pdf.  Find the original offending post at http://www.pogo.org/blog/2013/05/pentagon-tells-congress-stop-giving-us-what-we-dont-need.html, and find Danielle's new post, from today, responding at http://www.pogo.org/blog/2013/06/20130625-answer-to-armed-services-chairmen-turned-industry-lobbyists.html.  (Danielle's first and second posts also contain lots of informative links.)

 

Danielle's response is more polite than I would have written or that Skelton and Warner deserve.

 

The complaint, not signed by the other 13 members of this Coalition, is a good example of the depths to which the national security debate in Washington has sunk.  The Skelton/Warner letter reeks of pettiness, arrogance and fixation on self.

 

When they served in Congress, both Skelton and Warner had a reputation for generosity of spirit, and they persistently asserted their devotion to the well being of the nation and its defenses.  The generosity of their spirit has clearly left them, but they still regurgitate their devotion to national security, using typically elegant style but in their letter of crass complaint.  As King Claudius said in Act 3, Scene 3: "My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go."

 

_____________________________
Winslow T. Wheeler
Director
Straus Military Reform Project,
Center for Defense Information at the
Project On Government Oversight (POGO)
301 791-2397 (home office)
301 221-3897 (cell)