Stupid Senate Tricks, from The Netly News

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 5 Sep 1997 07:50:39 -0700 (PDT)
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
To: fight-censorship-announce@vorlon.mit.edu
Subject: Stupid Senate Tricks, from The Netly News


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http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/opinion/0,1042,1344,00.html
   
The Netly News Network (http://netlynews.com/)
September 5, 1997

Stupid Senate Tricks        
by Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com)

        What do you get when you mix discussions of high technology and
   the Internet with the weak minds of the aging techno-half-wits in the
   U.S. Congress? Answer: a screwball dialogue that veers haphazardly
   between the idiotic and inane.    
   
        From the infamous father of the Communications Decency Act to the
   California senator who confuses computer mice with real rodents,
   Washington lawmakers rarely have a clue about the technology they try 
   to regulate. Now that Congress is back in session, the lawmakers will
   once again be muddling through press conferences and briefings with
   the help of hovering aides. But sometimes they try to make a go of it
   on their own -- and then the results aren't pretty.

[...]

        Both houses of Congress have their share of boobs. Rep. Sonny
   Bono (R-Calif.) -- once dubbed the dumbest member of Congress by
   Washingtonian magazine -- showed up at the National Press Club in July
   1996 ostensibly to talk about copyright and the Net. Instead, he
   rambled incoherently about Cher ("I hope she doesn't put on any more
   tattoos") and sang "I've Got You, Babe" to the audience. Bono's public
   relations director once told the Los Angeles Times that when her boss 
   was mayor of Palm Springs, she had to rewrite his agendas into script 
   form: "For call to order, I wrote 'sit.' For salute the flag, I wrote
   'stand up, face flag, mouth words.'" (Yet Bono was the only member of
   Congress with the balls to challenge FBI opposition to pro-privacy
   legislation at a hearing earlier this year. Go figure.)    
   
[...]