U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran has mastered the political art of seeming serious without being serious.
Though he's been in Congress for 14 years, Moran likes to talk about Washington as if it's an alien land, a place where a good-hearted man of the Plains can't take a breath without his lungs tightening. This point of view prompts Moran to write cloying op-ed pieces in which he praises Kansans for their barn-hewn wisdom, thus avoiding any real discussion of the issues.
In his most recent love letter to his home state, Moran calls upon lawmakers to heed the folks back home. "Unfortunately, Washington is a town that prefers talking to listening, and much of the talk I'm hearing continues to be divisive and greatly partisan," he writes.
Moran goes on to say that the country "is facing a number of challenges." He mentions that the national debt has surpassed $14 trillion. But the substance ends there. The rest of the op-ed is more or less a string of words and phrases from the How a Successful Republican Talks playbook. Here is a timesaving list:
kitchen tableOf course, Moran doesn't really want to talk about the "tough choices." The debt can only be addressed with a combination of tax increases and cuts to big, popular programs like Medicare. Moran is calling for neither of these things to happen.make the needed sacrifices
borrow and spend
intellectually and ethically dishonest
mortgaging the future
out-of-control spending
future generations
special way of life
our children and grandchildren (twice)
good values
accountability
town halls
good stewards
tough choices
freedoms and opportunities
But he'd be happy to sit around a kitchen table and talk about your grandkids.
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