---------- 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 ********** 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.) [...]