"How Much Does Weasel Sell For On The Open Market?"

by The Cranky Media Guy

Rep. Billy Tauzin

So, Firestone made some bad tires.  Over 80 people have died so far as a result of the bad tires going kerflooey.  The Republican-led Congress has flown into action (after leisurely strolling back to work after their long summer vacation) and is demanding answers, damn it.

At the risk of being labeled as a naysayer ('cause I really lie awake at night worrying about that), let me be the first to say that this is a load of sun-dried horse crap. 

"Jeepers, Cranky Media Guy," you say, "isn't having hearings like this into defective consumer products exactly the kind of thing Congress should be doing?"  You'd think so, wouldn't you?  See, the thing is, Congress is infested with these phony "free market" Republican asswipes like Billy Tauzin (who's running this charade in the House).  It's their avowed philosophy that government should not regulate or interfere with business any more than is absolutely necessary.  In other words, let business do whatever it wants to; "market forces" will decide whether the company sinks or swims.

It's already been said by some people on the Hill that Firestone and Ford (on whose SUV's the defective tires were installed) broke no laws by not informing the government about the problem when they first discovered it.  Um, if these Free Marketeers believe that the government has no right to hold a company to any standards and it was okay to withhold information about potentially lethal tires, then what, exactly, is the point of the current hearings? Following their philosophy, Congress has no right to scold these guys for selling a dangerous product or to make any laws that would prohibit that from happening in the future.  Laissez faire, right? 

So, what are the hearings all about, Congressman Tauzin?  It couldn't possibly be that you and your colleagues realize that you've been labeled a do-nothing Congress and that, with an election looming in the near future, you figured you'd score some points with the public by wagging your collective finger in the face of the executives from Firestone and Ford, could it?  Nah, that can't be it because, given the hands-off-business position you and your fellow Republicans espouse, that would make you a gigantic hypocrite.  A gigantic hypocrite who is wasting tax dollars by holding hearings that will accomplish exactly nothing in the final analysis, by the way. 

That "business friendly" stuff plays well when you're shaking down the corporate types for campaign contributions, but it takes guts to look into a TV camera and tell Mr. and Mrs. America that it's a shame that 80-something people died because of crappy tires, but you aren't going to do anything about it because you think business should be "unshackled" from government regulation.  So, you betray the principles you say you believe in and mount a show trial for the benefit of the yahoos back home. 

Nice going, Billy.  First, you and your pals on the Hill embrace a self-serving philosophy that puts corporate profit ahead of human life.  Then when, as any reasonably intelligent person could see it would, the crap finally hits the fan, you put on your "concerned" face and pretend to give a rat's ass about the lives cut short by your corporate pals' corner-cutting.  I wonder if it ever gets confusing, trying to remember which lie you're telling under which circumstance.  "What am I today, the free marketer or the concerned Christian?"  Pick one, Billy.  You can't have it both ways.

If you had anything in that empty sac between your legs, you'd stop these stupid hearings and admit that it's your party's policy of deregulating industry and cutting funding for enforcement agencies that has created this situation.  You and your fellow weasels in Congress deliberately (and proudly) created the atmosphere in which companies can willfully sell defective products, Billy.  If you were a man, you'd admit that.  You're not, though; you're a weasel, so you'll continue to do what weasels always do: try to find someone else to blame things on when the shit hits the fan.

There are many weasels slithering around, messing up our world. We get to them - one weasel at a time. Visit the Hall of Shame section of The Crank Tank.