Jane Chastain : Politically Direct

“Let them eat cake!”

Those infamous words were unjustly attributed to Marie Antoinette who died on the guillotine in 1793. The beautiful French queen supposedly uttered that statement after being told the populace had no bread. The phrase was indicative of her out-of-touch attitude and sense of entitlement that made her immensely unpopular with the French people and no doubt led to her demise and that of the monarchy.

This unbecoming attitude resurfaced last month in the unlikely form of Caroline Bouvier Kennedy, the daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. Read the rest of this entry »

She didn’t have time to do Meet the Press or This Week or any of the other big name political shows that are considered a “must” by political insiders. So where was Sarah Palin?

Now we know the answer to that nagging question. She wasn’t breast-feeding Trig, helping the older kids with their homework, learning the latest stump speech or brushing up on issues great and small for the vice-presidential debate. She was shopping till she dropped at Sacks and Neiman Marcus with the GOP’s charge cards. Read the rest of this entry »

Jesse Helms was astute, kind, witty and one of the most polite and fair-minded individuals I have ever known, nothing like the caricature often painted by the media. Read the rest of this entry »

Are you convinced that all candidates running for political office are the same?

Do you see “politics” as just another career choice, where candidates work their way up the ladder and — once elected to the U.S. House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate — use their power, influence and our tax dollars to keep their jobs for life?

Are you annoyed that the party establishment hand-picks the candidates to fill the important posts, then lays out the bread crumbs for the rest of us to dutifully follow to the polls?

Just when you thought there was no way that an honest, selfless citizen could hack his way into the political hierarchy, along comes a man who breaks all those unwritten rules and comes out on top. Read the rest of this entry »

He’s got the charisma and moral clarity of Ronald Reagan, the honesty of Abe Lincoln and the mental toughness of Jesse Helms.  In Oklahoma, the polls show he is the only man who can beat Democrat Brad Carson for the Senate seat being vacated by Don Nickles, but the party establishment wants him to lose.

Tom Coburn is not a household word, despite the fact that this family physician from Muskogee was one of the most effective and feared men to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives in recent years.  That’s because Dr. Coburn’s leadership was behind the scenes.

Modern-day Washington is set up to reward career politicians with leadership posts and committee chairmanships and Coburn was no modern-day legislator.  He was a throwback to an earlier time when men went to Washington to serve, not to be served.
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