Political rag Roll Call recently ran a frighteningly clever cartoon with a meaningless wireless twist that oh-so-poignantly captured a toxic Capitol Hill environment that threatens to undermine action on important issues, including a meaningful wireless one.
First, the cartoon. A caricature of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), donning clerical garb with Bible in hand, is pointing at a goofy-looking Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) figure and declaring: “So you heathens won’t compromise? Then I’ll have to blow all of this up!” Reid, with a sour look on his face in disgust over a GOP compromise offer to limit debate on Bush judicial nominees to 100 hours, replies: “6000 minutes!? What is this-a cell phone plan?!”
With Dems ideologically opposed to President Bush’s appointments to the federal bench and prepared to filibuster against nominees, Frist is readying “the nuclear option.” The dramatic-sound tactic would change Senate rules to stymie Dem stalling tactics and force an up or down vote. Never mind there are real nuclear concerns (North Korea, Iran, post-Soviet loose nukes), it seems Congress cannot stand the thought of being upstaged by George Lucas or must-see-TV finales.
So we get cheesy chest-beating and pompous posturing likely to climax any day with a back-slapping deal among senators for saving us from political Armageddon.
Not everyone thankfully got sucked in the vaporizing vortex of doomsday political rhetoric. Last week, the mobile-phone industry and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children made Amber Alerts available to the nation’s 182 cellular subscribers. Credit goes to CTIA President Steve Largent for pulling it all together. What a way to punctuate Wireless Safety Week 2005. And as dumb luck would have it, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and CTIA finally issued a list of cell battery do’s and don’ts after extensive consultation.
Applause, too, for Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin for making Internet phone 911 service a top priority. Whether companies like Vonage are being forced to swallow too much too soon and whether a 911 mandate marks the beginning of government encroachment into a Net-based telecom service (apparently creeping into the wireless space) are subjects for debate.
For the same reason wireless technology is a perfect fit for Amber Alerts, Congress should act this year to fund enhanced 911 grants and the joint program office outlined in legislation passed and signed into law (though not supported in terms of funding) by President Bush last year. Reps. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) and Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), co-chairs of the Congressional E911 Caucus, are urging appropriators to do the right thing. That could be difficult, so long as Congress remains content contemplating its nuclear navel while Rome burns.
