A Republican reaction

David, please correct me if I'm wrong, but here's my sense of how this all works.
Attendance at this sort of thing is based entirely on whether a lot of noisy constituents are thought to care, or whether campaign donors are thought to care.
If a hearing is convened by people who aren't plugged into your operation, and it isn't about something like going to war, it doesn't matter if Jesus Christ himself is going to testify, you won't go. And this applies equally to both parties. Is that fair? You know better than I do, you worked for some senators.

We all live in little worlds of our own creation - they are a bit different from the world which God created. Our worlds are very small and narrow - whether we are conservative or liberal, - doesn't matter - These congressmen simply do not inhabit the same world as those who suffer in New Orleans. It becomes easier and easier to see such suffering in one dimensional terms. And then no attention is necessary. It becomes almost impossible to enter their world. Emails to congressmen are connected to programs that will answer you quickly with programed resonses. You are not allowed to visit with them - at least not without major preparation and connections. And so, like Bush and his paranoid terrorist world or Cheney and his fearful world or Hilary Clinton and her completely political world or Tom Delay and his world of Christian privilege -your ethic, your way of seeing others becomes small and unimportant. Jesus asks us to go out into the world, to love both neighbor and enemy and to care for the poor and mourning among us. It is our job to bring the world to our politicians - not the other way around.