Curious to see what anyone out in blog-o-land has said about a relatively minor figure in the current Republican melt-down, Representative Doc Hastings of the fourth Congressional District of Washington, I scanned down the Washington listings at leftyblogs.com, the fifty state localized politics index, found herehere.

I have to be honest here. I have no idea what $5,930 adds up to in the scale of the House of Representatives. I really don’t.

From “Blue Washington”:

To describe Hastings career up until now as “low profile” would be charitable. During his decade in the House, Hastings has earned a well-deserved reputation as the quietest member of our state’s congressional delegation… a do-nothing attitude that probably plays well with some of his “small government” supporters in WA’s largely rural 4th District. But as Ethics Chair, the chronic torpor that rendered him relatively harmless as just another congressman, totally undermines what little institutional integrity and effectiveness the committee has left. Which of course, is exactly why DeLay gave him the job in the first place: what better way to assure that ethics investigations grind to a halt than to mire the committee with a chair who is not only reliably partisan, but who favors a parliamentary style that borders on the inert?

The Ethics Committee’s year-long dormancy under Hastings’ putative leadership, combined with his ill-considered public statements in defense of DeLay, is not only an embarrassment to Congress, but to the voters of WA’s 4th District. The Yakima Herald-Republic also chimes in with an editorial today, and while I don’t quite understand their assertion that Hastings has acquitted himself by clarifying his position on DeLay (unless by “clarify” they mean “contradict”… am I missing the sarcasm?), they are clearly sending a message that they will hold Hastings responsible should he fail to follow through on his responsibilities.

On to Doc’s defeat… except, um… we get to the political reality: Indeed, if not for the fact that Democrats have such a weak bench in Eastern WA – they hold only 6 of 63 county commissioner seats – Hastings would be vulnerable to the corruption and incompetence fueled political storm surge that threatens to deluge Republicans in 2006. Well… you do realize that Doc Hastings would once again become meaningless in a minority party situation, right?

Actually, there’s more comments regarding this comment here…

Take One: Hastings is putting WA’s 4th Cong. District on the map as a bunch of country hicks. Take Two: DumbDoc, who failed to complete his college career at CWU, is incapable of independent thought. HIs drool cup runneth over. His voting record is the most partisan of any of Washington’s representative. He is nothing more than DeLay and Bush’s bitch. He has no business playing any part in making the laws that govern all of us. Having grown up in his district, I know there are plenty of Brian Schweitzer-types there who could give DumbDoc a serious run. By the way, how about Schweitzer for president? That’s, like, the third time Brian Schweitzer’s name has been mentioned here. Maybe we can bus Brian Schweitzer over in from his Montana governorship and have him run for the House seat of the 4th Congressional District of Washington State? Take Three: I’m embarrassed for my sister who lives in Kennewick … even if she isn’t. Funny comment, and it doesn’t even have to involve politics of any kind. Take four, just for bemusement let’s keep stock ofthe most entertaining of the trolling going on: Richard Pope: These LEFTIST PINHEADS are Stalin’s Useful Idiots. They want all righties indicted immediately incarcerated without a trial just like in commie Russia under Stalin. I agree if DeLay is convicted he should visit Dan Rostenkowski. Take Five, and reality seeps in: Douglas County PUD Comissioner Jim Davis ran against Hastings in 2000. He’s a gun-toting pro-dam wheat farming veteran moderate Democrat. Friendly, personable, straight-talking. Raised a fair bit of money. Seems like the perfect profile. Davis fought a hard campaign and got beat very very badly for his effort. Honestly, we aren’t going to get this seat until Hastings retires. Hastings has got inertia and that nice harmless quality that people never have good reason to *not* vote for him. Goldy, as a side note, always refer to the Congressman as Richard “Doc” Hastings. It drives his Chief of Staff up. the. wall. Hm. Richard “Doc” Hastings you say? Duly noted. Take Six: I don’t resent eastern Washington their congressman-for-life. After all, we have Jim McDermott. But I sometimes wonder if the 4th Cong. Dist. voters have been exposed to too much radiation, which does funny things to the brain. Ideology aside, Jim McDermott is a much more interesting personality / individual than Doc Hastings. Take Seven, and really the bottom line here: Doc Hastings is a dozy turd. Sorry, I just can’t muster anything more intelligent to say about him. I have been his constituent, and all I could really determine about him was that he seems to enjoy his franking priveleges. That’s about it. From talking to my neighbors, it seemed to me that a lot of people voted for him just because he had an “R” next to his name on the ballot. What a way to waste your voting franchise… sadly, a lot of people do it.

Say what? Richard “Doc” Hastings’s “Issues” page is “Under Construction”? Can’t he just copy and paste the RNC’s book, and toss in something about Hanford, and be done with it?

I’ve about reached the end here.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 14th, 2005 at 2:36 pm and is filed under Doc Hastings and the 4th Congressional District of Wash. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.