While I sincerely doubt that anyone is “furious” over this latest kerfuffle, it’s certainly worth a mention. A picture (that one) has been ricocheting around the Internet this week showing a bunch of Connecticut politicians playing solitaire and reading ESPN.com instead of, you know, legislating. (Come on, guys, you’re elected officials, not college freshman combing Ustream for Champions League streams!) So, after a few days of “outrage,” a politician has called for an outright ban on the use of laptops and BlackBerries during legislative meetings.
Is it an opportunistic? Yes. Is it grandstanding? Absolutely. But even if the guy, one Tom Foley, is able to get some cheap heat for calling for the ban, that doesn’t mean he’s wrong. Would you want your representative fiddling with his iPhone, say, pushing a button, every two minutes instead of paying attention to the matters at hand? No! It’s like, what if you, instead of working on the latest TPS Report, were sitting at your desk playing BrickBreaker? Odds are your boss wouldn’t like that very much.
It’s bad enough that taxes and spending are going up. Foley said in a letter, which he also posted on his campaign Web site. It’s even worse to think that our elected representatives would rather play computer games than listen to arguments against their reckless tax-and-spend philosophy.
Nonsense about “reckless tax-and-spend” policy aside, the man has a point: keep the electronic tiddlywinks away from official business.