Congressional hijinks at home

In my 8th congressional district of Maryland, we were represented (if you use the term loosely) by "Commie" Morella, possibly the most liberal Republican in Congress, until she was defeated in 2002 by Chris Van Hollen. Frankly, there isn't much difference now, except that unlike Van Hollen, "Commie" didn't hate Bush; she simply disagreed with him. This district is well educated, wealthy, and liberal, just the kind of place where good ideas go to die. And from now on, Republicans need not apply.

The current Republican challenger to Van Hollen is Chuck Floyd, who has provoked the Washington Post to cover him by registering three websites with the name vanhollen2004 and dot-com, dot-org, and dot-net, and then putting up "unflattering comments" about Van Hollen.

One site, http://www.vanhollen2004.com/, features a picture of a man in a chicken costume challenging Van Hollen (D) to a debate and outlines Floyd's campaign themes: that Van Hollen is weak on defense and a supporter of wasteful government programs.

A second site, http://www.vanhollen2004.org/, shows "The Van Hollen 13-Point Pledge to the Voters," declaring that Van Hollen wants "the U.S. to be like France" and wants his "friends -- the liberal judges -- to push the social envelope for our society."

The third site, http://www.vanhollen2004.net/, includes a picture of a bus destroyed in a suicide bombing in Israel and says Van Hollen is "more pro-terrorists than pro-Israel."

Here's Floyd's take on the incident -- it shows how incompetent the Congressman is.

Floyd said Van Hollen should have seen it coming.

"I feel if the congressman doesn't have the foresight to buy up certain domain names with his name, does he deserve to be in Congress?" asked Floyd, a retired military officer and State Department employee. "It was up for grabs, so I bought it."

And Van Hollen's response? The smart, wealthy, liberal constituents won't like it.

"I think people in this congressional district are going to be insulted at the level to which their campaign has stooped," Van Hollen said. "I have the benefit of representing a very educated district and this kind of garbage, people can see through it."

Proving that Floyd's assessment of his savvy is right, Van Hollen has now purchased the relevant domain names for 2006.