So, only a week after the Seattle Times lauds Democratic challenger Suzan DelBene for her nuanced and knowledgeable stance on reviving the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act — a subject that came up at their joint editorial board interview — you’d think Republican incumbent Rep. Dave Reichert would at least be able to bullshit an answer on the issue.
Um… nope. In fact, at a candidate forum in Newcastle this weekend, Reichert said he doesn’t even know what Glass-Steagall is.
I don’t know what’s more insulting, the suggestion that Reichert is brain-damaged, or the insistance that he’s not.
Reichert’s job is to represent the people. If I do not know what Gas-Seagals is, why should he?
We need more folks with Reichert’s common sense.
THEY can then hire folks who know the jargon!
Holy Guacamole! How can anyone who was in Congress when the big banks crashed the economy not know about Glass-Steagall? It was discussed an awful lot as the repeal of said act was a key domino in the fall.
The repeal of Glass-Steagall’s firewall between banking and investment, a regulation put in place in 1933 to prevent another financial collapse, was directly responsible for the financial shenanigans that brought us to the brink of economic disaster and caused John Boehner to stand before Congress and tearfully plead with his colleagues to support the bank bailouts in order to save the country.
Reichert is not qualified to even speak about financial reform, let alone vote on it, or, God forbid, help craft legislation.
To not be “familiar” with Glass-Steagall, is to not be qualified to serve in Congress.
I was at the Newcastle forum and this post is BS. Reichert discssed financial regulation in response to the question, a question I might add that was posed as a history lesson trap. It was clear Reichert is well aware of the reinstatement issue. You are grasping at straws here, Goldy trying to keep your “Reichert is Brain Damaged” Slog post story alive. Another of your lame and desperate attempts to be considered a “journalist”.
Pffff ….
Do you bozoes think Ronaldus magnus know what Gas Seagal was?
The job if leader is to hire bozoes t handle this sort of trivia.
As for “sarge” Bilko, read some American history. Long before Gas Seagals existed, we built the transcontinental railroad, won WW I, invented the cotton gin, radio, automobile and airplane!
All that FREE enterprise built the strength that Comrade Roosevelt used to beat the Nazis and Japs. Since then .. we have lost our way.
@4 clinging
cling on!
Maybe someone should ask if the Microsoftie responsible for LOOSING the smart phone wars is a better choice than a real man of the people?
I wish someone would ask del Bene what brand of cell phone SHE uses! I know Reichert uses an AMERICAN i-phone like every good Christian!
@4) He said he is not familiar with Glass-Steagall. He told Judy Schwartz, the person who asked the questions, that if she gave him her contact information he’d get back to her on that.
What’s really amazing, is that he understood that her question about re-instating Glass-Steagall was in the context of a question about financial reform, but still drew a complete blank on Glass-Steagall.
This was not a “gotcha” question. Many in the audience were shocked that he was “unfamiliar” with Glass-Steagall.
In Reichert’s “answer”, he said nothing about the regulations that were removed and the attempt to reinstate them. He gave the same meandering, convoluted answer he gave to Robert Mak (although a little more practiced). He simply does not understand the issue.
@4) He said he is not familiar with Glass-Steagall. He told Judy Schwartz, the person who asked the questions, that if she gave him her contact information he’d get back to her on that.
What’s really amazing, is that he understood that her question about re-instating Glass-Steagall was in the context of a question about financial reform, but still drew a complete blank on Glass-Steagall.
This was not a “gotcha” question. Many in the audience were shocked that he was “unfamiliar” with Glass-Steagall.
In Reichert’s “answer”, he said nothing about the regulations that were removed and the attempt to reinstate them. He gave the same meandering, convoluted answer he gave to Robert Mak (although a little more practiced). He simply does not understand the issue.
Beckoner @everywhere,
Your defense of ignorance is inspiring.
# 5 we have never had free enterprise in this nation. Call it what you will but it ain’t free enterprise.
@5: Beckoner
Umm, maybe you want your representatives as dumb as doornails and unable to understand or remember simple history . Remember, this guy (Reichert) has voiced his “opinion” on financial reform and claimed the bill was not good – yet he doesn’t even know the basics on financial reform.
As far as “brain damaged” goes – I would not keep harping on that Goldy. Reichert has never been particularly swift, so it is really hard to tell how much he has lost.
Suffice it to say, Reichert is clueless about banking reform and if his “experts” can’t get him to figure out an issue that his opponent brought up – how could he ever figure out ANY issue that he has to deal with.
Reichert is clearly incompetent and unable to remember the most BASIC information – even when it is critical for him to understand it.
Maybe an idiot like Beckoner wants someone like that representing her, but I want someone who can actually think and knows the issues.
Dave Riechert’s not brain-damaged. He’s just terminally stupid and pathologically incurious.
@6: I believe the word you are looking for is LOSING – not LOOSING. But maybe after you finish third grade, you can write something coherent. Umm, and that was not even her job at Microsoft…but what would you know?
Yeah, Delbene really LOST out – she sold her company for how much?
Oh, and Delbene has actually been a CEO and run a company …and Reichert – he has been on the public dole his entire life. So much for republican idiots claiming that business experience is all that matters.
@6
Wow, did you purposefully highlight your spelling error with all caps or does that software do that for you?
Even as a naive idealist pulled off the street to be ballot filler, I was still expected to know the answers.
I’d like to think that if I served as a bench warmer for three terms, I’d gleen something about the pressing issues of our time.
and yet, Suzan DelBene has had trouble finding the ballot box over the last several years. Probably thought it was over at Darcy Burnyerhousedown’s place.
correct @ 13
Dude. Too far. I’d vote for a bag of hammers over Reichert. But I would never question his public service.
Here’s the video: She even clued him in that Glass-Steagall was about keeping banking separate from speculative investing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SFVLm_Oxxg
This is the typical Republican…knowledge or facts are “evil” and you should just have “gut feelings” or “belief”. Who needs to know if a country we want to invade actually has WMDs, just pray to Jesus…and then do whatever the voice in your head tells you. Facts are for hippies!
If you’re want to be in national politics, voting on national issues, and you’re not aware of Glass-Steagall, you’re an idiot. It’s perhaps THE most commonly debated topic among economists and politicians since our recent economic meltdown (it’s the act that separated “banks” for general financial institutions).
If Reichert honestly never even HEARD of this much less knew about the details, yet sat Congress through this entire meltdown and is voting (or blocking votes) on reform based around this topic without knowing SHIT about it…he’s a idiot. He’s too dumb to do this job. Just voting randomly on topics without knowing what he’s doing, their impact, the issues…what a twit.
Stupid is not a virtue.
Reichert’s ignorance of Glass-Steagall is indicative of the fact that he takes his voting orders according to the party line. He has no need to know about the issues when his opinion of them really doesn’t influence his vote in any way.
On another note, I sometimes wonder if Goldy is making up aliases such as Beckoner to try to stir up a little bit of controversy on this site. It is hard to believe that is an actual person.
READ THE BILL!!
Physician heal thyself.
“In fact, at a candidate forum in Newcastle this weekend, Reichert said”
Yeah, yeah, sure, but did he have his goons detain an award-winning journalist in handcuffs for asking questions?
“On another note, I sometimes wonder if Goldy is making up aliases such as Beckoner to try to stir up a little bit of controversy on this site. It is hard to believe that is an actual person.”
Well, other than Goldy posting as Mr. Klynical, I kind of doubt it.
It’s on video stupid. See comment 18.
I don’t really hold with disparaging a public servant’s public service or disparaging a private business person’s busness experience per se.
But when a public servant is plainly less fot for office than a business person, or vice-versa, it’s totally fair to point that out and totally fair to state why.
Suzan DelBene is smarter, more articulate, more knowledgeable about national issues, and is aligned with the Congressional majority.
Putting Glass-Steagal aside, Dave Reichert supports “supports repealing health-care reform,” and I’ll bet he couldn’t put together a reasosned explanation of how that will benefit his constituents more than leaving it in place would. Dave is against regulating the finnacial entities that helped put us into this mess, while DelBene favors strong regulation.
On virtually every issue for the last six years, Dave Reichert has simply been…wrong. It’s time for that kind of simple-minded, brain-dead (too soon?) representation in WA-08 to end.
I agree with you, Daddy Love. This really made me angry during the Kerry campaign with the fact that bush and the Swift-Boaters (who turned out to be frauds) disparaged Kerry’s Vietnam service.
Of course, I don’t think that holding someone up as a hero for their public service is correct either. Thanking them for it, on the other hand, is appropriate.
love @ 25
I agree.
The issue I have with @ 13 is characterizing a police officer as living on the dole.
Republicans already cornered the market on criticizing government employees, especially tearing down those who’s duty it is to protect us.
The job of the reality-based community (us) is to mock hypocrites, know-nothings, troglodytes, corporatists, and blow hards.
Were “correctnotright” to point out that Reichert wants to deny healthcare to America’s poor, children, elderly, and disabled, while enjoying awesome healthcare at tax payer expense, while accepting bribes from Big Pharma and Big Insurance, then I’m totally on board.
27 JO and 26 m
My main objeciton is that it is politically stupid. It leaves us open to acurate charges of hypocrsiy once we suppoert a lifelong public servant. That and I believe that public service is a reasonable and noble calling and not just some reviled “government job.”
However, I thought that it was altogether appropriate to call out John McCain’s opposition to health care reform and his statements about the devilish and evil “socialized medicine” when he HAS been the recipient of goverment funded-and/or-supplied medical care all of this entire life. Shorter version: I’m glad he was “on that wall,” but I am not going to stand for the stupid shit he says after he comes down.
beckoner :+: :+:
@23, Steve…I always thought Goldy was posting as “Troll”. That mental ameba is plainly too stupid to be real.
Ummmm, folks, Goldy comments only as Goldy. But you are on to something in believing that Beckoner seems so over the top that it must be satire. (And no, it isn’t me.)
It is sad to observe that two or three years ago, it clearly would have been recognized as satire….
In a more carefree blogosphere with any other congressional incumbent, Reichert’s statement would have invoked from me a comment like:
“Is this person fucking brain dead?!?”
But Republicans seem overly sensitive about the characterization in the present context that I’ll just let it go….
I do know, for a fact, that Glass-Steagall is mentioned in the high school US History curriculum in this state. I know it is also in the CA curricula, and it probably is in OR as well. It is mentioned as part of the progressive legislation of the New Deal era laws that began to offer protections to the people of the country instead of just the rich. Those lessons were apparently left out of the actual classroom teaching for some folks like Reichert, and he probably wasn’t in class when it came back as part of the required general education US History college coursework.
re 32: Darryl, is that a photo Yorick’s skull or your own?
@32: But Darryl, who would you want to elect to drink a beer with or to stare angrily into the eyes of a serial killer?
@33: Not paying attention in History class? Fuck that!
ANYONE who isn’t keenly aware of what Glass Steagall was in the current economy (or lack thereof) isn’t paying the least bit of attention. Worse, Reichert is a public official who had the responsibility to know when voted no on the meager mitigation we got.
Incompetent and pathologically incurious is more like it.
@28
I’m pretty sure that you and I are in agreement.
Look, whether or not he has health issues is kind of moot in this case. Reichert hasn’t had to know anything his entire time in Congress, why would he start now? He’s been elected on his hair, willingness to sell the PNW down the river and being able to do what the Republicans tell him to do. Even without not catching the Green River Killer, he’s been the perfect candidate for people that don’t want to think too much.
@17: Jason: I applaud Reichert for his public service – but this is a right wing meme they use all the time – except when they don’t use it….
Actually, I don’t applaud him all that much for missing the GR killer right under his nose for all those years. Sloppy, myopic and lack of attention to detail…hmm, that is still the way he is.
@4: Cling on wrote
Hmm, lie much? The video link is posted and you (Cling on) are a BIG LIAR!
He clearly says he does not know about the Glass Steagall act and it was not a “trap” – it was posed in context.
Gee, I wonder why you have not posted again on here? I would be ashamed too – if I lied that much.
The reason these idiots are unfamiliar w/Glass-Steagall is O’Really, Glenn Peck(er), Shame Vanity and Flush Gravyballs haven’t told them. Or regurgitated it into their gaping maws, as it were. They believe the banking crash with its housing meltdown are Barney Frank and Chris Dodd’s fault.
The flying monkeys are super restless, and it will be interesting to see how long until the “2nd Amendment” solutions begin after the election. The election that they believe will result in a red wave. You know….the one that ain’t gonna happen.
Here is a video of Reichert’s speech. I was at the forum too. Reichert complained aloud that his voice was weak. He looked older than when I last saw him.
I think it’s outrageous that he’s unaware of the Glass-Steagall Act when the issue came up in his Seattle Times interview. He’s supposed to know that stuff!
bashing reichert over the head with a tree branch was an ingenious move by camp delbene. do we know who operated the saw?
So unpatriotic of him to refuse to debate.