ALSBers,

Although the security lapse was silly and regrettable, what bugs me more about this episode is that the representative presumably is in Iraq to pay attention to, listen to and learn from the people there, civilian and military, and to LEARN something about successes and /or failures and how to make our policies better.  Instead he devotes his time to self-centered and self-promoting  Twitter-ing about how he is going from "point A to point B RIGHT NOW!":   This "ITS ALL ABOUT ME, SO PAY ATTENTION TO ME NOW" approach misses the point entirely.  I would prefer the Congressman leave his Blackberry at home and focus on making real progress on the necessary issues.   Save the bandwidth only for communications about actual achievement of some importance.

But if you like Twitter, here is a Twitter-like tidbit for you:  I am drinking Hazelnut Crème coffee RIGHT NOW!

Rick Kunkel


On 2/13/09 9:07 AM, "Clarkson, Gavin S" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

In terms of assessing the partisanship of your post, would you have
posted the same message with a prominent identification of his party
affiliation if Congressman Hoekstra had been a Democrat?

For that matter, would the media have alerted you as gleefully to
Hoekstra's arguably boneheaded use of Twitter if he were a Democrat?

(Not a nasty email, just a lament about the level of partisanship in so
many aspects of our national discourse.  Dubya utterly failed to "change
the tone" in Washington, and I have little hope that Obama will succeed
in reducing partisan rancor either)  :(

-- Gavin

-----Original Message-----
From: Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB) Talk
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of James Highsmith
Sent: Friday, February 13, 2009 12:28 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Intelligence?

Colleagues, I thought this was a priceless example of why government
does not always work well.

DOES THIS SOUND SENSIBLE???

The top Republican on the U.S. House INTELLIGENCE committee used his
Twitter page to update the public on his precise whereabouts while
traveling through Iraq and Afghanistan.

 (Terrorists don't use the internet, do they?)

James Highsmith
P.S.  Apologies to anyone who thinks this is not a proper subject for
our list. Judgment call.
No nasty emails please. :-)