Speech Codes

This was probably copied from the North Korean guide to "Stayin Alive" that originally referred to the Dear Leader, but this sort of stuff travels well, and so far it hasn't been applied outside the U.S. House.

Under section 370 of the House Rules and Manual it has been held that a Member could:

• refer to the government as “something hated, something oppressive.”
• refer to the President as “using legislative or judicial pork.”
• refer to a Presidential message as a “disgrace to the country.”
• refer to unnamed officials as “our half-baked nitwits handling foreign affairs.”

Likewise, it has been held that a member could not:

• call the President a “liar.”
• call the President a “hypocrite.”
• describe the President’s veto of a bill as “cowardly.”
• charge that the President has been “intellectually dishonest.”
• refer to the President as “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.”
• refer to alleged “sexual misconduct on the President’s part.”

To translate, everything the Dems said about Bush is OK, and everything the Reps said about Clinton or Obie is forbidden. This should help clarify in the minds of the voters next election, just who stands for what.

As a suggestion to the members of the House, the way to word a speech is:

"My honorable colleagues, while I would never call our Dear Leader a liar, a hypocrite, or intellectually dishonest in pursuing actions that give aid and comfort to our nations enemies, I must observe that some 50,000,000 of my constituents have raised these issues on numerous occasions recently, and ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, what they intend to do to reduce this lack of confidence in our nations leadership?"

See? It's all in how you phrase it.

Meantime it wouldn't hurt to write your congress-nitwit and ask if they intend to expand this speech code to the general populace soon. It could be called "hate speech" and tacked on as an amendment to something.

Personally, I love nothing more than a bogus conspiracy theory that causes heartburn to politicians. If you like, go ahead and accuse them of supporting the amendment, and tell them that the recall petitions are being printed up even as they are reading your letter of outrage.