It’s no mystery why Zach Wamp’s opponents are reduced to straw-grabbing zaniness in their efforts to smear him. He is capable and well-regarded as a congressman, and he regularly nets two-thirds or more of the votes in his district. What’s left for the critics but hyperactive nitpicking?
Recall – if you can – the madcap attempt months ago to link Rep. Wamp to segregationists after he pointed out what was apparently news to his detractors: that the Constitution limits the power of the federal government. That line of attack got all the traction of a banana peel on a marble floor.
But in further adventures at Petty-Coat Junction, we now have this blistering quibble against Rep. Wamp: that he is paying “only” $600 – plus board and other expenses – to rent an 8-by-10-foot room in Washington for the six or seven nights he stays there each month. A “shadowy religious organization” owns the house, the obscure grumblers say, and is part of this dastardly, supposedly below-market intrigue. Purported co-conspirators include not only Republicans but equally shadow-loving Democrats such as Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina.
Among other nefarious deeds by the group that owns the building is sponsorship of that creepiest of creepy assemblies (insert scary music here) – the National Prayer Breakfast! If you are not acquainted with the National Prayer Breakfast, let me set your heart a-quail with terror: Its speakers have included notorious right-wingers such as Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter and, yes, Barack Obama.
But while we lament the distressing ownership of Rep. Wamp’s Washington abode, let us not fail to simmer with indignation at the shocking extravagance in which he luxuriates while there. The rented shoe box he calls home in D.C. is so replete with fanciness that he need only walk to the other end of the house for the privilege of using the bathroom. That’s correct, reader: The Beltway Taj Mahal in question has indoor plumbing. What’s next? One of those newfangled contraptions on the wall that let you punch a few buttons and talk to somebody miles away?