Roll Call - "The Newspaper of Capitol Hill" on Scott Garrett: "Thin Skin"

[Kire]

:bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

Thin Skin
By Mary Ann Akers
Roll Call Staff
September 21, 2005

To be a successful Member of Congress, two things you must have are a tough hide and a tight lip. But Rep. Scott Garrett’s (R-N.J.) skin appears to be somewhere between a newborn baby’s bottom and a puppy’s belly, and his lip is about as loose as the streets of Las Vegas, judging from his reaction to a recent letter to the editor published in New Jersey’s Express-Times newspaper.

http://www.rollcall.com/pub/51_26/hoh/10580-1.html

You have to be a paying member to read the whole article. Somebody is faxing it to me, I'll try to transcribe some more of it when it comes.

Background: Must Have Struck a Nerve

[Kire]

1. Here's the four greatest paragraphs from the column.

Garrett’s press secretary, Eric Cullen, confirmed that his boss did call Anderson at home. But he wasn’t pissed, as Anderson suggested in his blog posting. “I have never heard Scott Garrett become exasperated,” Cullen said.

Wow! If so, the Congressman deserves the “Only Member of Congress Who Never Becomes Exasperated” award!

“I’ve never known him to be rude or exasperated in the least with his constituents. ... I can’t imagine him being, quote, pissed off, unquote, with a constituent,” Cullen said. Well that pretty covers it: Garrett is neither rude, nor exasperated, nor pissed off.

But “he’ll pick up the phone and call somebody” if that somebody has written something he feels is worth challenging, Cullen said. In the case of Erik Anderson, Cullen said his boss “got the guy to agree with him” and “brought him onto common ground.”

[atommom]

3. He "got you to agree with him"? Funny, that's not how I remember it!

:rofl:

[MADem]

4. My favorite snippets!!!

“I picked up the phone tonight and the man on the other end said his name was Congressman Scott Garrett. I almost didn’t believe it. I asked him twice if he was kidding. After he confirmed it twice, it dawned on me that he didn’t like the letter I wrote in today’s Express-Times blasting him for voting against Katrina hurricane relief. He was pissed,” Anderson wrote in his posting on the blog. ....

And I am SO PLEASED they challenged that "common ground" BULLSHIT:

That sure isn’t the way Anderson spins it. “The ball’s in Garrett’s court. He has to explain his vote to the people (his family included.) ... All he has to do is come out as loud and clear as I did in my letter, making it clear what he means. Please don’t call up people who write letters to the editor.”

[Kire]

8. you quoted me!

thanks!

[MADem]

10. You were worth quoting--a great big BRAVO!!! to you!!! n/t

[spooky3]

2. I'll bet they had a lovely discussion about the First Amendment.

[Kire]

7. I just let him talk until he was done.

and then I spread it all over the blogs

[spooky3]

9. hahahahaha!!!

[Chi-Town Exile]

5. OOOPS!

Shouldn't Garrett have consulted KKKarl's playbook and called Erik's boss instead?

It's so difficult getting around that pesky 1st Amendment, isn't it, Rep. Garrett? :silly:

[Kire]

6. Somebody left me a strange message on my answering machine today.

http://dump.grendosa.com/harrassingcall9-22-05.wav

Of course I could be paranoid...my blog says I'm schizophrenic, but I'm interpreting it as harassment until I am otherwise notified.