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March 1999

Watching the Right: Congresspeople

By Giacomo Tramontagna

Rep. Robert Barr-- This voluptuously mean-spirited Georgia Congressman has long been obsessed with ridding America-- and, if possible, the cosmos-- of William Jefferson Clinton and his kind.

A member of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus and the principal architect of the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Barr has received the Christian Coalition's Friend of the Family Award. While still married to his second wife, whose abortion he financed in 1983, this Friend of the Family is known to have been in an adulterous relationship, a month after his second divorce, with the woman who would become his third wife.

A board member of the American Rifle Association, Barr is an apostle of gun ownership who has worked to repeal the Clinton Administration's restrictions on assault weapons. He is a popular speaker at events held by organizations like the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens. The John Birch Society's web site offers a 30-minute audio clip of Barr's rousing speech at the Bircher's 1998 annual dinner.

Rep. Daniel Burton-- In his address to the John Birch Society, Congressman Barr called Burton a "great American." The Almanac of American Politics describes the Indiana firebrand as "an enthusiastic conservative, confrontation-minded long before most of today's feisty young House Republicans appeared on the scene (or started shaving)."

A conspiracist who sees sinister forces at work throughout the Democratic Party, Burton is obsessed with the idea that White House Deputy Counsel Vincent Foster was murdered by the Clintons (along with scores of other victims). He has performed his own Vince Foster ballistics tests, simulating Foster's gunshot wound by shooting watermelons in his back yard.

Burton's tenure as chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee investigating campaign finance irregularities has embarrassed Republicans and delighted Democrats, as his own legally and ethically questionable financial arrangements have come to light.

Obsessed with the threat of plague-spreading homos, this relentlessly pious member of the Family Values brigade stopped going to the House gym after his colleague Barney Frank, who works out there regularly, admitted his homosexuality. The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call reports that to avoid infection, Burton brings his own scissors, comb, and electric clippers to the House barber shop.

Married since 1959 to the mother of his three legitimate children, Burton fathered a son by his mistress in the early 1980s during his first term in Congress. A graduate of the Cincinnati Bible Seminary, he is a past president of the Indiana Christian Benevolent Association.

Rep. Tom DeLay-- A staunch Texas Baptist from Houston, DeLay started out in the extermination business, as owner of Albo Pest Control, and has never ceased to search for vermin to dispatch.

As Majority Whip of the House of Representatives, he is the principal flagellant keeping moderate Republicans from breaking ranks with the dominant hard-line conservatives. Credited with drafting the regulatory provisions of the Newt Gingrich Contract with America, DeLay now holds power that eclipses that of House Majority Leader Dick Armey, a fellow Texan.

A stubborn proponent of school prayer, he is fiercely opposed to gay civil rights. His impeccably fascistic voting record has earned him a 100 percent approval rating from the Christian Coalition; his record on labor issues has earned him a 0 percent rating from the AFL-CIO.

Recently Robert Blankenship, DeLay's former partner at Albo Pest Control, stepped forward to point out that DeLay, like Bill Clinton, seems to have lied in a civil deposition. Sued by Blankenship in 1994, DeLay denied under oath that he was an officer of the company. In the same period, he told Congress that he was its chairman. Court documents also indicate false statements concerning DeLay's financial arrangements with Albo, and contain an untruthful disavowal of any source of income other than his Congressional salary.

Rep. Dennis Hastert-- A former high school history teacher and wrestling coach, Hastert has occupied his 14th Illinois Congressional District seat since 1986. Recently appointed Speaker of the House, he fills the gap left by Louisiana's Bob Livingston, ex-Speaker Newt Gingrich's originally designated heir, who resigned from Congress amid revelations of his past adulterous affairs. Hastert brings to the position the charisma of a yam.

A key supporter of the Contract for America, he chaired Newt Gingrich's Steering Committee on Health Care Reform. As Chief Deputy Majority Whip of the House, he worked hand-in-glove with Tom DeLay. The Family Research Council, which claims to have "worked closely with Hastert on drug issues," praises the Congressman for his "solidly conservative, pro-family voting record" and for repeatedly co-sponsoring the anti-abortion Human Life Amendment. In 1996, Hastert cosponsored DOMA.

The ACLU ranks Hastert several points lower on civil liberties than Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. His ratings from the American Conservative Union, the National Right to Life, the National Rifle Association, and the Christian Coalition have, on the other hand, hovered around 100 percent.

Rep. Henry J. Hyde-- As Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Hyde presided over impeachment hearings in the House of Representatives, then headed the team of 13 House impeachment "managers" who brought the case for the removal of President Clinton to the US Senate. One of the true howlers of mainstream press coverage of the House impeachment hearings was the fiction that Hyde was a moderate who would take a non-partisan approach to the proceedings. (Perhaps some journalists are taken in by the fact that Hyde, who stuffs his bombastic speeches with classical quotations, is one of the few members of Congress known to have read a book.)

Selectively principled about making false statements under oath, he brings to Clinton's prosecution for lying a history of excusing lies told to Congress by fellow right-wing Republicans Newt Gingrich and Oliver North. To an examination of Clinton's evasiveness regarding sexual matters, he brings the authority of personal experience. While married to his present wife, Hyde carried on a clandestine four-year affair with married beautician Cherie Snodgrass. This self-described "youthful indiscretion," which destroyed Snodgrass's marriage, took place when he was in his forties.

A rigidly conservative Catholic long notorious as a Congressional archenemy of abortion rights, Hyde was the Catholic Campaign for America's Catholic American of the Year in 1994. Hyde has also been the recipient of an award from the archconservative Free Congress Foundation, headed by fellow Catholic militant Paul Weyrich.

Rep. Steve Largent-- A former wide receiver with the Seattle Seahawks, this Christian athlete from Tulsa was inducted into the National Football Hall of Fame in 1995, the same year he began his Congressional career. Largent is the rising star of the right-wing SWAT team that is the Oklahoma Congressional delegation, each of whose ten members has received a 100 percent approval rating from the Christian Coalition. A supporter of DOMA and his colleague Ernest Istook's proposed Religious Freedom Amendment, Largent has ties to such theocratic-right organizations as Oklahomans for Children and Families (famed for instigating a kiddie-porn bust of Volker Schlondorff's Academy Award-winning film The Tin Drum).

Replete with happy reminiscences of "raising four kids. . . our car littered by fast-food wrappers and French fries," Largent's speeches are the rhetorical equivalent of warm Velveeta.

In his rebuttal to Clinton's 1999 State of the Union address, Largent made the gee-gosh revelation that he only learned that GOP meant "Grand Old Party" after having been elected to Congress as a Republican candidate. "Largent's happy-to-be-a-dork admission," wrote Seattle Times columnist Ron Judd, "puts him right up there with His Imperial Highness Dan Quayle in the higher echelons of Washington, DC boobhood."

Senator Trent Lott-- This Republican Mississippi bloodhound is described by Steven Rendall of Fairness and Accuracy in Media (FAIR) as "one of the leading political figures promoting the Neo-Confederate cause-- a movement rife with racism and other forms of bigotry and which claims membership in the tens of thousands. In the past, Lott led the fight for tax breaks for Bob Jones University and other segregated schools, and was the leading advocate for the successful drive to reinstate the citizenship of Confederate President Jefferson Davis." The Neo-Confederate movement overlaps significantly with hard-core paranoid hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

To his role as Senate Majority Leader, Lott brings a Klan-like sensibility. An outspoken homophobe who has publicly compared gay men and lesbians to kleptomaniacs and alcoholics, he was a key interviewee in the widely distributed hate video Gay Rights, Special Rights.

Lott recently became the center of controversy when it was revealed that he has on more than one occasion addressed the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), a segregationist organization whose membership encompasses some of Lott's relatives. The CCC newsletter, Citizen Informer, runs columns by Lott alongside racist diatribes; a 1997 direct-mail campaign by the CCC was built around a Lott endorsement. Lott denies knowledge of the organization's openly bigoted views.