Term Limits? Who Cares?

Charlie Bass has filed papers to run for another term as Congressman for CD-2. Telegraph:

"Americans are crying out for independent leadership," Bass said.
Democratic candidate Ann McLane Kuster of Hopkinton kicked off her 2012 campaign last week attacking Bass as a captive of an extreme, right-wing agenda.
"Annie Kuster's campaign is basically the 2010 campaign," Bass said.
Later, he added, "I think things have changed a bit in the past two years."
Kuster will make "distractions and distortions," Bass claimed.
This is widely regarded as one of the most competitive races for a seat in Congress this fall.

Translation: Annie Kuster will tell the truth about Charlie Bass.  
That same Charlie Bass who signed Newt's Contract With America in 1994. Bass signed a term limits pledge that year - stipulating that he would serve no more than 6 years in the House.

Since then, he's served 12 consecutive years before he was ousted in 2006. That means he's up to 14 years at this point. I've heard Bass lie in public. He insists to this day that we were justified in invading Iraq. At a town hall meeting in Jefferson in 2011, Bass was complaining about the unfair treatment that the wealthy were getting - that class warfare stuff- since it's the wealthy who pay the majority of taxes in America - not that he'd know. Yup, multimillionaire Charlie Bass tried to pretend he isn't wealthy. Clearly his term limits pledge is just another bit of deceit from the Bassmaster.

Does any of this matter? Only to us. Lying doesn't matter any more. From Kevin Drum in Mother Jones:

Last month David Corn noted that Mitt Romney was claiming that "government" would control half the economy once Obamacare was up and running. He's still saying it, and today Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post gives it a score of four Pinocchios and says Romney should drop it. "No amount of tweaking will get it right," he says.

and

This discovery - that you can tell almost any lie without paying a price - is, in some sense, an example of national politics becoming a lot more like local politics. Blatant lying has always been routine in local races that don't get a lot of press coverage, but the brighter media spotlight kept at least a bit of a lid on it in higher-profile races. However, with the splintering of the mainstream national media in recent years and the rise of the web and social media, national politics is local again. And being called on your lies by the occasional earnest fact checker now matters about as much as it does when a local columnist for a weekly newspaper calls you on it.

The lack of responsible media is killing what's left of our democracy.

"O brave new world that has such people in't." The Bard