The MountainGoat Report

'Under' Every Great Man. . .

Recently released economic data from the U.S. Census Bureau's ongoing American Community Survey indicates that during this recession Idaho's poor—especially women and children—aren't faring well.  It's not clear that those making decisions in this state have plans to ease this burden any time soon.  In fact if anything, it seems the load being carried by Idaho women and children will get heavier before it gets lighter.

Average household income ($59,429) is down from the previous year.  The percentage of people using food stamps (7.6%) is up.  Households with incomes less than $25,000 (23.5%) are up. Those making between $25,000 and $35,000 (12.2%) are down.  The percentage of children with all parents in the workforce (65.1%) is up.  Per capita income ($22,748) is down.  The percentage of grandparents responsible for grandchildren (54.2%) is up—from 26th to ninth in the nation.  More people—renting and buying—are paying a higher percentage of their income in housing costs.

Nowhere is it more evident just who is taking the brunt of this recession than in the number of Idahoans living in poverty.

While the percentage of all Idaho families below the poverty level increased slightly from 9.3 percent in 2006 to 9.4 percent in 2008, during the same period female householders living in poverty grew at a significant rate of 17 percent.  The number of single women with children under eighteen living in poverty climbed from 34.7 percent to 40.6 percent.  Those with very young children (under five) jumped nearly ten percentage points, from 47.7 percent to a whopping 56 percent.

One contributing factor is the disparity in earnings between men and women in Idaho, where the median earnings for women are 72 percent less than for men.  This disparity has persisted over time, but Idaho women working full-time, year-round in 2008 had a median salary of $29,730, down slightly from $29,880 in 2006.  Men, on the other hand, saw their median wage increase over the same period from $40,866 to $41,461.  In only five states (Wyoming, West Virginia, Utah, Indiana and New Hampshire) do women encounter a greater earnings disparity than that of Idaho women.  [For a sobering snapshot of how this earning disparity persists across all occupations in Idaho, even those dominated by high percentages of women, check out this chart.]

Idaho women were more likely than men to find themselves living in poverty in all educational attainment categories.  Fifteen percent of female high school graduates had incomes below the poverty line compared with eight percent of men.  Even nearly 6,000 women with a bachelor's degree or higher had incomes below the poverty line in 2008—nearly two-thirds more than their male counterparts.

The survey estimates that in 2008, 13.7 percent of Idaho children under eighteen were without health insurance—nearly 4,000 more than '06 and '07 estimates of 12.2 percent.  The number of uninsured Idahoans overall is estimated to be 267,000 or 17.8 percent.  Although the survey doesn't separate these most recent numbers by gender [at least I defy anyone to locate this data if it exists], a report issued in March from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation indicates that in the last decade the number of uninsured women in Idaho has increased at a rate of 37 percent, while the rate of increase for men is 4.7 percent.

Women in Idaho earn less, are more likely to live in poverty, are becoming increasingly uninsured and, as the primary caretakers for children in this state, during this recession are being asked to do more with less.  With his new budget proposals that include slashing 6 percent out of higher education, inexplicably the governor of this state is cutting women off at the knees, creating obstacles to the primary tool they have of creating a better life for their children—education.

Idaho women are legendarily tough but this gives a whole new meaning to "women and children first."

Update 10.06.09:  Betsy Russell has more on 2008 children's health insurance data from the U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Survey with results that vary from the data in the American Community Survey.

Public Option: Get Serious

"Inventor of the public option explains why it's crucial"

I think it's pretty clear why if you look at what's happened over the last generation in American health insurance. Private insurance plans have basically failed us, and we need to have competition between a new nonprofit public health insurance plan that puts patients first and not private insurance companies.

Read it if you haven't yet.  Then check this out:

Big Dog Minnick Bites

Love him or hate him, Idaho's Blue Dog Congressman is certainly making noise in Washington.  After changing a provision in a bill designed to protect consumers from unfair lending practices to instead protect creditors back in April, now Walt Minnick is attempting to change President Obama's plans to regulate Wall Street with a new consumer financial protection agency by eliminating it.

From Politico:

Rep. Walt Minnick, a freshman Democrat from Idaho, has floated the new plan. Instead of creating a new federal agency to protect consumers from predatory financial firms and shoddy products, Minnick’s plan would have existing state and federal regulators work together in a “consumer financial protection council.”

“We’re trying to come up with something that will achieve the objectives of what the White House is asking us to do without creating a new stand-alone federal regulator,” Minnick told POLITICO.

While Blue Dogs support Minnick's alternative, others do not.

Consumer advocates and liberal members of the House Financial Services panel won’t like Minnick’s pitch. They insist that only a new agency focused exclusively on protecting consumers will work, arguing that existing regulators will never see consumer protection as a top priority.

The Treasury Department also argues that the current system of consumer protection in the financial industry is so structurally flawed that only a new agency can set it right.

The article goes on to say that Minnick discussed the proposal with the chairman of the Financial Serives Committee, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) who, Minnick is quoted as saying, was open to talking about it.  But Frank told Ryan Grim of Huffington Post, not so fast.

"As soon as I saw the story I called Minnick and said, 'You've really gotta retract it,'" Frank told HuffPost, saying he was "absolutely opposed" to his proposal. He told Minnick as much when they spoke about it last week, said Frank. A Minnick spokesman didn't return a call.

The CFPA, which is still headed for a committee vote in October, Frank said, would be tasked with rating financial products and could restrict or ban those that it found to be deceptive and unsafe for consumers. It is fiercely opposed by both community banks and large financial institutions.

Consumer groups were blindsided by the Blue Dog plan. "We did not know this was coming," said Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.), the lead sponsor of the CFPA in the Financial Services Committee.

"An advisory committee is a long way from a watchdog agency with the power to set rules and enforce them," Miller said.

The question has been crystallizing over the last several months:  who exactly is Walt Minnick working for?  The answer may be becoming just as clear and this dog may actually bite.

Minnick's Amendments

Since taking office in January, Idaho Blue Dog Congressman Walt Minnick has been successful in getting at least three of his amendments adopted by the U.S. House of Representatives.  Of the two most recent, one happened last week, to much heralding and fanfare.  The other was in April, to an eerie silence.  One added ten words to a bill; the other replaced just one but that one-word amendment in April might actually affect you, or maybe at least the way you view Congressman Minnick.

Thursday Rep. Minnick's office put out a press-release breathlessly touting the adoption of his amendment to the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009, which passed the House on a 253 to 171 vote the same day.  The amendment, says the release, will "help veterans receive college degrees."

While Minnick's vote on this bill is commendable, after all he did keep a campaign promise and even departed from his mentor Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) in doing so, how much his amendment (which passed without opposition) will actually do for veterans seems more unclear.

Here's the relevant portion of the bill with Minnick's amendment inserted in bold:

IN GENERAL.—Each eligible entity receiving a grant under this section shall develop quantifiable benchmarks on the following indicators (where applicable), to be approved by the Secretary:
[...]
(D) Improving comprehensive employment and educational outcomes for postsecondary education and training programs, including—
[...]
(iv) transfer of general education credits, including education credits earned while serving in the Armed Forces, between institutions of higher education, as applicable;

It will require participating institutions to set benchmarks and report annually on progress toward meeting those benchmarks.  Although no doubt the idea behind the amendment is worthwhile, the practical benefit veterans will gain from the addition of this ten word phrase to the bill isn't certain.

Worthy of demanding a recorded vote when no one debated in opposition?  Worthy of the excited press-release hailing Minnick for helping veterans receive college degrees?  Grandstanding or legitimate--make your own judgment about that.

It might be a little easier to let Walt have his moment in the sun if it wasn't for the dramatically different way he handled an amendment he was successful in adding to a bill five month ago.

On April 30, the House adopted Walt's amendment to what was called the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights Act of 2009.  The bill amended the Truth in Lending Act to establish fair credit card lending practices and became law on May 22.

According to the Act, a credit card company is required to give a consumer 45 days notice prior to raising the interest rates on a credit card and, except under certain circumstances, the rate increase cannot apply retroactively to the existing balance on the card.  As the bill was originally written, the existing balance was considered the balance owing on the card 14 days after the rate-increase notice had been sent out.  This meant a consumer had a two week grace period after which all subsequent charges would be subject to the increased rate.  Minnick's amendment changed the grace period from 14 days to 7 days, giving consumers only a week before subsequent charges would start incurring the higher interest rate.

Here's how he described it:

Mr. Chair, H.R. 627 requires a creditor to provide a consumer at least 45 days’ notice before increasing the consumer’s credit card rate. However, in this bill the higher interest rate taking effect on day 45 applies only to the extent that the consumer’s balance is more than it was at the end of 14 days after receiving the notice.

However, determining the protected balance as of day 14 may still provide enough time for consumers to incur higher overall debt than may be appropriate for them by inflating the balance that will be protected from the rate increase and, in the process, allow consumers to game the system at the expense of creditors.

This amendment would provide that the amount of the balance protected from the higher interest rate be set at the 7-day mark, instead of at 14 days. This change would still give consumers the full 45 days to shop for an alternative source of credit for a better deal, but it would reduce their ability to inappropriately inflate their balances to avoid the application of the higher rate in the event that they do not transfer their balances to another card by that time

Yes, in the bill passed under the auspices of protecting consumers from unfair lending practices, Congressman Minnick felt it necessary to protect the creditors from consumers "gaming the system."  (I suppose the takeaway here could be, don't wait more than a week before opening mail from credit card companies.)

The Minnick amendment passed by voice vote.  No recorded vote was requested.  No press-release breathlessly touting the successful passage of the congressman's amendment.  No YouTube video highlighting the debate.  Just a subtle—nearly hidden, even—message to consumers.

"I've been a businessman for thirty years," Minnick is fond of repeating.  Somehow that doesn't have the ring it once did.

Know Your Conservative Demagogue

A couple of must-reads that may help make sense of the nonsensical or, at the very least, put it in perspective.

One is "Meet the man who changed Glenn Beck's life" by Alexander Zaitchik at Salon.  Subtitled, "Cleon Skousen was a right-wing crank whom even conservatives despised. Then Beck discovered him," it's a primer on Glenn Beck's life-changing philosophical influence, Cleon Skousen, and, as Zaitchik describes him, "the author of the bible of the 9/12 movement, 'The 5,000 Year Leap.'"

Here's a snip:

What has Beck been pushing on his legions? "Leap," first published in 1981, is a heavily illustrated and factually challenged attempt to explain American history through an unspoken lens of Mormon theology. As such, it is an early entry in the ongoing attempt by the religious right to rewrite history. ... The book reads exactly like what it was until Glenn Beck dragged it out of Mormon obscurity: a textbook full of aggressively selective quotations intended for conservative religious schools like Utah's George Wythe University, where it has been part of the core freshman curriculum for decades (and where Beck spoke at this year's annual fundraiser).

But more interesting than the contents of "The 5,000 Year Leap," and more revealing for what it says about 912ers and the Glenn Beck Nation, is the book's author. W. Cleon Skousen was not a historian so much as a player in the history of the American far right; less a scholar of the republic than a threat to it. At least, that was the judgment of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, which maintained a file on Skousen for years that eventually totaled some 2,000 pages. Before he died in 2006 at the age of 92, Skousen's own Mormon church publicly distanced itself from the foundation that Skousen founded and that has published previous editions of "The 5,000 Year Leap."

As Beck knows, to focus solely on "The 5,000 Year Leap" is to sell the author short. When he died in 2006 at the age of 92, Skousen had authored more than a dozen books and pamphlets on the Red Menace, New World Order conspiracy, Christian child rearing, and Mormon end-times prophecy. It is a body of work that does much to explain Glenn Beck's bizarre conspiratorial mash-up of recent months, which decries a new darkness at noon and finds strange symbols carefully coded in the retired lobby art of Rockefeller Center. It also suggests that the modern base of the Republican Party is headed to a very strange place.

Find the rest here; it's worth the read.

The other is "Wealthcare" from Jonathon Chait at The New Republic, a primer on Ayn Randian philosophy, its half-century influence on conservative thought and its reemergence in the forefront of today's "soshalizm" hysteria.

A snip:

At a health care town hall in Kokomo, Indiana, one protester framed the case against health care reform positively, as an open defense of the virtues of selfishness. "I'm responsible for myself and I'm not responsible for other people," he explained in his turn at the microphone, to applause. "I should get the fruits of my labor and I shouldn't have to divvy it up with other people." (The speaker turned out to be unemployed, but still determined to keep for himself the fruits of his currently non-existent labors.)

In these disparate comments we can see the outlines of a coherent view of society. It expresses its opposition to redistribution not in practical terms--that taking from the rich harms the economy--but in moral absolutes, that taking from the rich is wrong. It likewise glorifies selfishness as a virtue. It denies any basis, other than raw force, for using government to reduce economic inequality. It holds people completely responsible for their own success or failure, and thus concludes that when government helps the disadvantaged, it consequently punishes virtue and rewards sloth. And it indulges the hopeful prospect that the rich will revolt against their ill treatment by going on strike, simultaneously punishing the inferiors who have exploited them while teaching them the folly of their ways.

There is another way to describe this conservative idea. It is the ideology of Ayn Rand.

Check out the rest; it's also worth the read.

Got Insurance?

Yeah?  For how long?

From Kaiser Health News:

Employers struggling with the steady rise of health insurance costs – which in 2009 increased 5 percent to an average of $13,375 for family coverage -- are passing on more of the expense to their workers through higher deductibles and co-payments, according to survey released today.

With increasing deductibles and co-pays how many will simply forgo preventative care?  And at this rate, how many families will even be able to afford premiums in 2019 at $30,803 per year?

Percent of Insured Workers With A Deductible Of $1,000
Or More For Single Coverage

Source: Kaiser Family Foundation/Health Research & Educational Trust Survey Employer-Sponsored Health Benefits, 2006-2009.

Health Care In the Land of the F-f-f-free

Sing along folks:

"We're Number 37
We're the USA
The big Number 37
And we're so proud to say
We got old people crying at the pharmacy
Pay your deductible
This aint the land of the f-f-f-free Grandma
We're Number 37
We're the USA"

h/t:  The New Republic

Idaho Reps on Rebuke of Wilson

Today the U.S. House of Representatives voted to rebuke Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) for his "You lie!" outburst during President Obama's health care speech to a Joint Session of Congress last Wednesday.  The resolution passed on a 240 to 179 vote with seven Republicans joining the Democratic majority in favor and twelve Democrats voting with the GOP against the measure.

Idaho's Reps Mike Simpson and Walt Minnick voted along their respective party lines, Rep. Simpson voting against and Rep. Minnick in favor of the rebuke.

In case you've been living under a rock or perhaps hiking the Appalachian Trail, get caught up on the Joe Wilson saga here.  Watch portions of the resolution debate here.

---

H Res 744 — Official text currently unavailable; a copy can be found here.

Clerk of the House
Congressman Minnick — Yes
Congressman Simpson — No
Democratic Position — Yes
Republican Position — No
Result — Passed 240-179, 5 present, 10 not voting

9.11.09

 

Minnick Intrigued

If you can't vote for this bill you're not a Democrat.

— Jonathan Alter, MSNBC, reacting to President Obama's health care plan
as laid out in an address to a Joint Session of Congress, 9.9.09.

I suppose you can make your own judgments about the address and in light of that, what Idaho Congressman Walt Minnick's statement regarding the speech means.

One bit of Minnick's statement caught my eye.

I am also intrigued by the president’s call for a new insurance exchange, the kind of private-sector concept so many of my constituents support.

Hate to break it to the congressman, but the insurance exchange has been part of the House bill proposals from the beginning.  Perhaps he'd do well to actually read the proposals before rejecting them instead of relying on the rest of the delegation's Republican talking points, including those of his congressional role model, Rep. Mike Simpson.  Just sayin'. . . .

Also, curiously, Congressman Minnick's editorial from July 17, "Minnick makes case for health care reform" has been removed from his official House website (where equally as curious, "health care" is no longer a browseable topic.)  Not exactly sure if that was inadvertent or if that means Minnick is no longer making the case for health care reform.  In any case, a copy can be found using google cache or one here, if you are so inclined.

Unhinged Hysteric

Michelle Cottle at The New Republic on Fox News' Glenn Beck:

But Beck? Beck is an absolute hysteric, prone to fits of on-air weeping and end-of-the-world blathering more befitting a deranged televangelist than a political pundit. Like many professional bomb throwers, he spews plenty of hateful, divisive bullshit, but the man doesn't seem to have ideological convictions so much as a nervous condition. You get the sense that this whole Obama presidency has deeply disrupted his mental and emotional balance, rendering him as unstable as a case of aging dynamite.

In many ways, this makes Beck the ideal standard bearer for modern conservativism. Forget the tough-as-nails swagger and smirking self-regard of Dick Cheney or the naked Machiavellianism of Tom Delay: Today's Right is increasingly characterized by whiny paranoia, unfocused rage, and panic-striken hyperventilation stemming from a spiraling persecution complex. Ayee-eeee! The White House is trying to kill my grandmother and brainwash my childrennnnnnn!!

Exhibit A:

And if you haven't seen Keith Olbermann's completely hysterical dismantling of the Glenn Beck last week, you should check that out too.

Seriously? This is your guy?

Will The Band Play On?

As is evident lately, truth has become a casualty of fear.  That's especially evident in all the confusion and noise over health care reform with the bottom line for many being "we like our sinking Titanic, thank you very much, and we're riding this iron scrap-heap to the bottom."  Doesn't matter how much water the health care system takes on, for some, those dastardly life boats leaving the rails are much too dangerous to risk climbing aboard.  We could carry this metaphor to its gruesome end, pointing out the fate suffered by the locked in steerage class, but maybe the point is already clear.

Continuing on with the metaphoric Titanic anyway, avoiding the catastrophe of our unsustainable health care system, wherein 47 million Americans are already treading water, requires resuscitating the truth.  Sisyphus throws it a life preserver over at 43rd State Blues, posting links to various sites that have done the fact-finding research to help sift through the confusion.

Another can be found at Kaiser Health News in articles like this on what reform means to actual people.  KHN has also obtained and posted charts containing information on the maximum premium and out-of-pocket costs families and individuals who are currently, or nearly so, priced out of the system may be expected to pay under House reform bill proposals.

Here is the chart showing current non-group market premiums and the proposed maximums for a family of four:

See Kaiser Health News for additional charts showing the maximum out-of-pocket costs for a family of four and the individual plan premium and out-of-pocket costs.

To complete this somewhat lame and broken Titanic metaphor, the band of Blue Dog Democrats, including Idaho's own Walt Minnick, has the opportunity to choose their course:  continue joining those creating panic among the screaming masses, pushing people overboard into the frigid seas of the uninsured or stand bravely and calmly on the deck and play. 

Walt, They're Never Gonna Love You

Idaho Congressman Walt Minnick is one of the targets of the recently announced "Votes Have Consequences" project put out by the conservative, anti-abortion women's political group, the Susan B. Anthony List.  The project is "an effort to educate citizens about the voting records of legislators who are out of step with their districts."

From Politico:

Minnick is an interesting inclusion on the list, given that he’s held one of the most conservative voting records for a freshman Democrat -- a necessity given that he’s representing a conservative Idaho district that John McCain handily carried.

But he’s also taken campaign money from abortion rights groups and is one of the most vulnerable Democrats up for re-election, making him a natural target for the organization.

With Walt's voting record you'd think that anything short of actually performing abortions would have kept him off this list.  Plus he's indicated his opposition to the health care reform bill that currently has the group distraught.  Just goes to show that no matter the pandering, no matter how many times Walt yips "fiscal conservative," he's just never going to win over Bill Sali's base.

Wherein MountainGoat Gets Frank With Walt

An open communiqué for Idaho Congressman Walt Minnick:

On Halloween day last year, in an interview with University of Idaho's KUOI radio in Moscow, you scolded your opponent for voting against expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program, saying, incredulously, "Who could be opposed to providing health care to single moms who don't have jobs?"

Bill Sali said we couldn't afford it and voted against it—four times.

You said, "There are some places this country has to invest," and called the votes shortsighted.

You went on to describe your own traumatic health care experience with your young son and on finding yourself facing $600,000 in medical bills to save his life, said:

My company had excellent health insurance and my wife and I only had to pay a few thousand dollars of that, but if we hadn't had that insurance, even though I was running a company, I would have been personally bankrupt.

Every American should have comprehensive, affordable health insurance so that a medical disaster doesn't force them to lose their home, lose all of their retirement and lose everything they've built in their lifetime.

Congressman Minnick, I'd like to introduce you to Tom and Karen.  They are third-generation wheat farmers on the Palouse.  They are among the 138,000 living in your district who don't have health insurance.  Karen hasn't been to the doctor in 13 years; the last time Tom saw a doctor was when a cow stepped on his hand, eventually deciding as blood poured from his mangled finger that an infection from the bacteria-laden manure was something they couldn't treat at home.  Despite medical advice otherwise, he didn't stay overnight.  They couldn't afford it.  They have a young son who has never been to the dentist.

Well, let's let them finish telling their story:

Congressman Minnick, no one, including you, expected health care reform to be easy.  But as you and the KUOI host mused about just how difficult it would be, with an eerie prescience befitting the day, you hoped it could be achieved before it became a "political football."

Hard-working Idahoans like Tom and Karen sent you to Washington because you gave them hope.  Hope that you could and would convince their country to see them as an investment.  People of the 1st District had enough of the rigid ideology that told them they weren't worth the price and sent you to represent them instead.  They didn't expect to get a more finely honed rigid ideologist.  They didn't expect, nor did they deserve to get their lives turned into political footballs—least of all by you.

Yet that is exactly what you've done.  You joined the chorus of townhall crazies and fear mongering ideologues who turned Tom and Karen and every other Idahoan who can't afford medical care into political footballs.

Instead of coming home and working to convince Idahoans that they had nothing to fear and much to gain from health care reform (something many of us were prepared to help you do), you and your advisors (with their legendarily acute grasp of messaging) sent out misinformation-laden press-releases playing up the fears of Idahoans using triggers like "socialized medicine," "big government" and "raising taxes."

Instead of embracing a public option for what it is—an option that would reduce costs by pressuring private insurers to compete alongside government coverage; that would actually save $150 billion over the next ten years, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates—you ridiculed it as "socialized medicine," calling it a big government takeover that would kill private insurance.  Far from killing private insurance, according to CBO estimates the current House bill would actually increase the number of Americans covered under private employer-based policies by about 3 million.

Instead of reassuring Idahoans that to make these proposed reforms that, while imperfect, give 97 percent of Americans health insurance, only 6,000 of them (3,000 in the 1st District) would be asked to pay a little more in taxes (that's one percent for individuals making above $280,000 and married couples making more than $350,000), you resorted to fueling fears with the pavlovian specter of "raising taxes."  I suppose raising taxes on yourself and your well-heeled friends is counterintuitive but how else do you propose to pay for reform, Mr. Minnick, as you so often lament that the current bill estimates do not?

When you have anywhere from $220,000 to $650,000 personally invested in health related businesses (among those spending $1.4 million a day in lobbying so far this year); when you have taken over $126,000 in campaign contributions from health related industry (over $52,000 so far this cycle according to the Center for Responsive Politics and refuse to say no to more); and when you, until eight months ago sat on the board of Primary Health, Inc., can you blame Idahoans who are having to choose between medical care and food for wondering exactly whose interests you are representing?  Can you blame people for being skeptical that you are looking out for them—for even being angry at having become your political football?

You say, meekly, that you want health care reform but your actions belie your words.  The health care reform principles that you support look an awful lot like the status quo on steroids.  Forcing Idahoans to buy insurance but offering them only the crappy policies from your campaign donors and business interests feels an awful lot like mandating that everyone buy a Yugo and cheerfully offering taxpayer money to help any who can't afford it and pocketing the proceeds.  You say that increased government regulation will make these crappy policies palatable and affordable but the banking industry, the credit card industry and the mortgage industry were all supposed to be government regulated, too.  That didn't make them safe; when regulation got watered down, they did too.

As pointed out in Congressional Quarterly, over the last decade health insurance costs have increased at three times the rate of wages.  At these rates, even those who have insurance will soon no longer be able to afford the premiums.  A family of three making $55,000 a year (more than the average wage in Idaho) are spending nearly a quarter of their income on insurance premiums.  People can't wait.  In our unconscionable health care lottery system, those lucky enough to have insurance and those unlucky souls who don't were counting on you.  We were all counting on you to make the investment in us.

Four days after that Halloween interview you became Congressman-elect Walt Minnick . . . well, technically five if you count the late-night vote tallying that finally determined your slim victory.

On that fifth day, embattled but euphoric Idaho Democrats gathered on the steps of the Capitol Annex in Boise for a press conference celebrating a campaign season that produced victories large and small:  a stunningly large turnout on short notice to see then-candidate Obama, record numbers turning up at Democratic caucuses, a new Democratic president, state legislative wins and, the icing on the Democrat's cake, your victory over Bill Sali in the 1st Congressional District.

While Idaho Democrats publicly celebrated, you were conspicuously absent.  Your wife A.K. and your son were there.  It was said you were busy.

It wasn't the first time Idaho Democrats were left holding your purse while you careened off on your own Magoo-ian path.

Sadly, it wasn't your last.

Idaho Democrats didn't expect you to roar like a liberal lion but they and all Idahoans deserve more than this type of lion made famous while gracing the big screen in The Wizard of Oz.