Politicians Calling the Kettle Black (by Tim Cox)

We’ve all heard the idiom about the pot calling the kettle black, but isn’t it embarrassing how often it applies to our congressmen? Consider the recent investigation into CEO pay by our esteemed House Oversight and Investigations Committee. Now that they have resolved the problem with Roger Clemens, steroids and baseball, I suppose they did need something new to work on. Heaven knows there is nothing for them to do regarding the deficit, earmarks, immigration, education, or the environment.

I’ll let others debate whether or not CEO pay is excessive, but take a look at a few of the quotes from the hearing. I replaced the word “executives” with a _______. Fill in the blank with the word "politicians" and see how true it reads. Is this a case of the pot calling the kettle black, or perhaps more appropriately, congressman calling the turd brown?

Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) said, “There seem to be two economic realities operating in our country today. Most Americans live in a world where economic security is precarious and there are real economic consequences for failure. But our nation’s top ______ seem to live by a different set of rules.” He then added, “It seems like everyone is hurting except for ______.” He further offered, "Any reasonable relation between ______ compensation and the interests of shareholders appears to have broken down." Mr. Politiican, look in the mirror, please.

Waxman, on a downhill roll, went on to say, "It seems that ______ hit the lottery as their companies collapse," and “When companies fail to perform, should they give millions of dollars to their ______?” Perhaps he should read these with “our government” in place of “companies.”

I don’t mean to pick solely on Waxman; most politicians are guilty. Consider Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD) who complained, “We’ve got ______ drifting off to the golf course but have people I see every day who are losing their homes and wondering where their kids will do their homework.” This was said while Waxman and his colleagues went on vacation instead of voting on the Terrorism Surveillance issue. Almost 30% of our kids fail to graduate from high school yet Cummings et.al. debate steroids and CEO pay. What color is that kettle?

Our representatives need to worry about their own job. Shareholders could do a better job of managing their Board of Directors and CEOs, and the baseball union should do a lot more to control steroids and such, but Congress has far bigger and immensely more important problems to worry about, like the future of our country.