First-term members of Congress generally take one of two paths: they keep their heads down while learning the ropes, or they make a splash. Looks like Bruce Braley is taking the second path.
Not long after his hilarious grilling of GSA administrator Lurita Doan got linked to all over the liberal blogosphere, Braley is making the news again as the most assertive member of the Iowa delegation when it comes to getting answers from the Pentagon.
Join me after the jump to see Braley getting praised by Des Moines Register columnist John Carlson, of all people.
For those of you who don’t regularly read the Des Moines Register, John Carlson is a conservative who usually writes non-political columns.
He likes to write about human-interest stories–the best potato chip, dumb things today’s grown-ups did when they were kids. Occasionally he tackles a political topic (usually employing whatever right-wing talking points he heard on the radio), but mostly he sticks to his comfort zone.
Carlson likes to write about the Iraq war or about veterans who have returned home from the war, but you will rarely see him write about big political questions related to the war, such as whether Congress should be defunding the war, whether the Bush administration lied about this or that.
A good recent example is this column: Family of fallen soldier fights for specialty license plates. Carlson profiles a couple whose son died in Iraq in 2005, and who want the state of Iowa to create Gold Star license plates they can put on their cars. This is Carlson’s kind of story. He is not generally interested in people who protest against the war or against any Bush administration policy related to the war.
But I digress. This post was supposed to be about Bruce Braley.
So I opened the Register today and see Carlson on page 1 of the Metro section: Tours of duty extended? What else is new?
At first glance he is just complaining about the military’s recent announcement that Army units will now be doing 15-month tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Here we go, I’m thinking, Carlson complaining about how hard this is for the troops and their families without asking any of the tough questions about why the Bush administration has stretched the military so thin.
But no, Carlson starts talking about how the Iowa National Guard’s Waterloo-based 1-133rd Infantry Battalion should have been coming home this month, but they found out in January that their tours in Iraq would be lasting an extra four months.
At the time, the Pentagon did not notify the soldiers in the units. Their families found out from the news media, and the soliders started hearing about it through phone calls and e-mails from their loved ones.
Freshman Congressman Braley, who is from Waterloo, was angry. He authored a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates that all members of the Iowa congressional delegation signed. It was sent on January 19. Gates responded on January 31, saying he referred the matter to someone else, and an Air Force colonel sent a letter on February 7 promising an investigation.
I think a lot of representatives would figure that their constituent service obligations ended there. I’ll let Carlson pick up the story from here:
On March 9, Braley kicked them in the backside, saying it had been more than a month and he was still waiting for answers.
On March 13, the Department of the Army acknowledged receiving Braley’s March 9 letter.
On March 26, Braley wrote Gates again, saying it had been six weeks, and he was still waiting for a good answer.
On March 30, an Air Force colonel wrote to Braley that the “National Guard Bureau acknowledges and regrets the occurrence of a breakdown in the notification process.”
On April 5, Acting Secretary of the Army Pete Green said in a letter to Braley the notification of the soldiers “was not executed as well as it should have been, and we regret the confusion and anxiety this caused for all concerned.”
Was Braley satisfied with these sort-of apologies?
“I wanted answers for the soldiers and the families impacted by this bureaucratic nightmare, and after three months of navigating through red tape, the Pentagon has not assured me that any progress is being made,” Braley said Thursday.
“I’m frustrated because this is the same type of response I heard from top Army officials at Walter Reed, who assured me they would provide me with the number of patient advocates at Walter Reed,” Braley said.
“I’m still waiting for their response.”
Carlson notes approvingly that Braley “is beginning to look Grassley-esque in his insistence on getting answers from bureaucrats and top Pentagon officials.” That’s high praise coming from a conservative like Carlson. He went on to predict that Pentagon staffers “are going to become very familiar” with Braley.
Anyone out there live in the first district? What are you hearing about Braley? Is he trying to make the news a lot, or is he keeping his head down a la Tom Latham? Is his office said to be responsive to constituent requests?