"And the reason for it, sir, is we do get a lot of misinformation."

Congressman Melancon shows Bob Delgiorno how to claim the Nigerian Prince's fortune while signing up for free cell phone service and enhancing his man parts all in one tweet.


This morning on WWL radio, Bob DelGiorno hosted Congressman Charlie Melancon for a discussion about the state of health care reform legislation currently before Congress. Melancon is a member of the Blue Dog coalition who recently voted against part of the legislation in committee. Delgiorno is a loud clown of a man who has made a career of throwing his unabashed ignorance into competition with his faux outrage to see which one can generate the biggest brightest stupidnova of any given morning.

I've transcribed a few highlights of the conversation between the two men, one a news and information professional and the other a U.S. Congressmen, as they grappled with the complexities of accessing pending legislation. (Audio here. Transcribed conversation picks up around minute 37:00)

Bob: Do you have this bill HR 3200 in nice binding... all thousands of pages or so? Why can't the general public get access? I went to Housegov.com [ EDITOR'S NOTE: "housegov.com" is not an actual website] I clicked on bills. I went to HR 3200. I went to the American Affordable Health Choices Act 2009 and I got ring-around-the-rosie. I had to put all this information together to go -- go to committees and comments... why can't we look at that bill? WHY CAN'T THE TAXPAYERS LOOK AT THAT BILL?

Melancon: Bob, as far as I know you can.

Bob: How?

Melancon: Well I'd have to ask my staff. I don't get on the computer all day. As a matter of fact I'm never by my computer all day. But they can get copies and know were to go and what...

Bob: But WE DON'T KNOW WHERE TO GO! And we want to find out where we can look at it.

Melancon: That's what I want to do for you.

Bob: And the reason for it, sir, is we do get a lot of misinformation.

Melancon: Sure and one of the things and please give this out.

[Melancon recommends "www.politifacts.com" (yes he spelled it out) as a "non-partisan web site" that sorts out "myths and facts" It is not.]*

Bob: But still back to the question, why can't we get on the internet and get HR 3200? Tell me how to do it! How do we do it?

Melancon: I don't know. I'll get my staff...

Bob: CAN THEY LET US KNOW?

Melancon: I'll get my staff to email to you the address where you go to get the bill. And if there's some difficulty getting the bill downloaded from the site... whatever it is.. please let us know because I want government to be responsible...

Bob: So when are you gonna get this information so I can pass it on to my listeners?

Melancon promised he would have "my staff" email the appropriate information to DelGiorno later. But since Melancon is "never at my computer" and DelGiorno is a blithering idiot, I can't imagine that operation will go off very efficiently. Bob has a lot of spam to click though in between his obsessive refreshes of "housegov.com."

During the next hour, Bob updated us on the state of things. Obviously Melancon's staff had not yet emailed.

He's gonna send me all this information on how to access this bill. They get a nice binder and we gotta get on the internet and just go crazy trying to get all this information and verify the crap we get... you know.. what's true what's not true.

Here's what's true. HR 3200 is available online. I'll get you there in one click, if you like.

What's also true is that if Bob were to find the bill, it would be the most disappointing development of the day for him. It would invalidate his smug insinuation that it's being hidden from his view for some devious purpose. Worse than that, he might even feel obligated to read it. And that would suck since, as we all know, it's not Bob's job to actually read and understand the bill... or read summaries of the bill... or read any reliably sourced piece of news about the bill. All he's paid to do is shout about it on the radio. Although I can't imagine why WWL continues to agree to such an arrangement.

* Clarification: I feel a little bad about not pointing out that the Congressman was obviously referencing the site politifact.com however that isn't what he said.