For those of you who don’t have the time to analyze C-Span on a day-to-day basis, a new website called Congress Speaks takes care of that for you—and more (in a nod to centaur fetishists, politicians’ bodies are either donkeys or elephants). The site has compiled the number of words spoken in the 110th Congress (2007-2008), all 14,548,598 of them, and specified who said what.
Below you can see how many words were spoken by Washington state’s congressional delegation, as well as the three words each of them used the most, giving a glimpse of their priorities. Somewhat shocking is that Doc Hastings talked more than anyone else in our House delegation last session because, well, who the fuck knows anything about Doc Hastings?
House
38,278 Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Pasco): tax, Democrat, question
35,044 Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Seattle): Iraq, war, children
32,806 Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Bainbridge Island): energy, clean, company
13,125 Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Auburn): Washington, Country, Police
12,228 Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Belfair): million, funding, service
11,580 Rep. Brian Baird (D-Vancouver): research, science, urge
7,685 Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Spokane): Washington, Community, Spokane
6,023 Rep. Adam Smith (D-Tacoma): yes, Iraq, unable
2,563 Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Arlington): Washington, wilderness, local
Senate
65,663 Sen. Patty Murray (D-Shoreline): home, care, country
35,895 Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Seattle): oil, energy, market
Now you can create songs that sum up the priorities of your favorite members of Congress, just like Ali G does here (at around the 3:50 mark):
Market!? Oh noes!
Something tells me Doc Hastings is the Congressional equivalent of an old man writing angry letters to the editor, or sitting on his porch yelling at kids to get off his lawn.
@2 – You are fucking spot on.
That Ali G clip is hilarious.
Doc got the name “Doc” because his little brother couldn’t pronounce “Dick”. True story.