http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/columnists/orl-maxwell1308apr13,0,5007414.columnIf you don't side with Feeney, you must be un-American?Scott Maxwell | TAKING NAMES
April 13, 2008
I was caught off guard when Tom Feeney first suggested I wasn't a patriotic American.
He suggested I didn't support our troops enough either. It was all so strange -- because all I had really called to discuss was why he spent more than $3,000 in tax money on a mailing that looked more like campaign flier. Yet, suddenly, we weren't talking about the mailer. Not really, anyway. Suddenly, the discussion had turned into a litmus test on patriotism.
"It's about whether or not we're going to support our men and women in uniform," he said.
Huh? I thought this was about whether you were trying to use public money to get yourself re-elected.
(SNIP)
Feeney wanted to express his "outrage" at the Berkeley City Council for voting to ask the Marines to close up their recruitment office and encouraging activists to protest the recruiters, which they described as "unwanted and uninvited." The vote was primarily ceremonial -- and hardly a surprise. This was uberliberal Berkeley, after all. And while most Americans would probably disagree with what the council did, the vote didn't amount to much real action. The Berkeley mayor even apologized afterward.
(SNIP)
So he used $3,113 of your tax dollars to put together this letter -- certainly not an exorbitant amount in the scheme of congressional spending. But enough to buy something such as Interceptor body armor for a couple of soldiers.
"I am shocked and outraged with the city of Berkeley," Feeney proclaimed in the piece. "This treatment is unacceptable and will not go without consequence . . . It is time for those of us in Congress to stand up and say enough!"
Feeney's proposed solution: Strip the city of federal funding. Yes, in response to a vote by a handful of council members, Feeney wanted to deprive taxpaying Americans throughout the city of federal money they were otherwise slated to get -- some of it for lunches in public schools.
(SNIP)