There are good guys in politics. Maybe theyre not good all of the time and maybe in an election year like this one theyre as rare as a Republican at an AFL-CIO meeting. But Ive known elected officials to pull off incredible acts of selflessness and statesmanship and Ill bet you have, too.
Id like to salute at least one of these good guys my heroes every week, starting with this one.
But I cant leave out their polar opposites. You know who they are. Last week you barely knew their name, this week their offensive antics are in your face and driving you nuts. Im talking about real zeroes here goose eggs political figures who engage in conduct that would disqualify a job applicant from any sort of gainful employment.
Along with heroes, then, Ill dish you up my weekly zeroes.
This Weeks Hero(es): U.S. Sens. George LeMieux and Bill Nelson
Republican George LeMieux and Democrat Bill Nelson seldom agree on anything. But both had the good sense last week to oppose or, at least seek a delay of the draconian tightening of water pollution limits the federal Environmental Protection Agency wants to force on Florida.
LeMieux wrote this in the Orlando Sentinel: Last year, the Obama administration and EPA entered into a legally binding agreement with environmental advocates seeking to impose stricter limits for phosphorus and nitrogen in Florida's waterways. Unfortunately, the standards and timelines have little scientific foundation. Worse yet, these mandates will increase the cost of doing business in our state and the cost of living for Floridians.
In a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, Nelson wrote, I share the concerns many Florida residents, municipalities, businesses and farmers have about the potential cost of compliance with these standards and the validity of the science. I believe you made the right decision to submit the portions of the rule related to downstream values, canals, coastal and estuarine waters to the EPA Science Advisory Board for peer review and delay finalizing those rules until August 2012. However, Im concerned that the rule for lakes, streams, and springs is still set to be finalized on Oct. 15, 2010.
A study by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and the University of Florida projects the EPA mandates could cost Florida up to $1.6 billion annually and eliminate 14,500 jobs. And a survey of nine Florida water utilities estimates that a household's sewer rates would increase by $62 per month, or more than $700 per year.
Though finalizing the rule for lakes, streams and springs has since been delayed only by one month until Nov. 15 LeMieux and Nelsons show of bipartisan support for farmers, businesses, in fact all Floridians, was selfless, vital and hugely encouraging. It helped buy time for reason to prevail.
This Weeks Zero No. 1: U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson
Democrat Grayson is most peoples favorite zero these days.
Heres a candidate whose ads are based on the premise that most people believe what they see and hear on television. And even when what theyve seen and heard is exposed as lies, lots of those people will continue to believe the lies anyway. As one of Graysons Orlando constituents said, Where theres smoke you know ... I believe some it has to be true.
Graysons attack ad calls his Republican opponent "Taliban Dan" Webster and displays edited Webster statements from a speech to make it appear he was advocating women should be subservient to their husbands.
He wants to impose his radical fundamentalism on us, the ad claims, using clipped bits of a speech Webster gave at a 2009 Christian event, repeatedly saying of a husband-wife relationship, she should submit to me. The 2009 speech made just the opposite point.
Grayson is outrageous, entertaining, a perfect showman beloved by TV talk show hosts for his loony-tunes candor. But a serious member of Congress constituents can rely on for straight talk? Not a chance. The man is a zero.
This Week's Zero No. 2: State Sen. Mike Bennett
Remember the senator with a screenful of nipple-exposed girls gone wild?
On the last day of the 2010 legislative session, the Bradenton Republicans computer antics on the Senate floor made him a punch line for comedians on three American TV networks, and in four European countries and Australia.
Here we are five months later and Bennett resurfaces on our Home page.
Seems three years ago Bennett obtained a $1.8 million loan from Flagship National Bank of Bradenton. The loan went "sour" and the community bank went under. Had the economy not tanked, Bennett and a partner might have made a killing on a land deal with the proceeds of that loan. But they didn't, nor did they make the payments.
The chief official of the bank, seized by federal regulators in 2009, now claims he would never "lend money to a politician again if my life depended on it."
The way I see it, Bennett is worse than a deadbeat. He used his status as a member of the Senate Committee on Banking and Insurance to wring the loan out of Flagship National. He didn't have to come out and talk about his Senate position outright to make this deal unsavory. He only had to imply it -- which the bank official claims he did.
Not long now, Senator. Hooray for term limits. You really are the perfect zero.
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Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at (850) 727-0859.
