POLITICAL SAUSAGE

WARNING: This column should not be read in conjunction with any meal. Do not consider the information that follows within one hour of any repast where sausage is or was being served. Individuals with acid reflux, weak stomachs, peptic ulcers and other gastro-intestinal problems should see their physician before reading.

Former President Bush's White House chief of staff, Andrew Card noted in a press conference years ago, “There’s a sausage machine on Capitol Hill. We gave the sausage machine all of the right ingredients; they have to churn. And I’m confident that when they turn that sausage out it’ll be the right kind of sausage for America.”

Never, in my own humble opinion, has such a high-ranking politician spoken more truthful words! There’s a sausage machine on Capitol Hill. And you can bet they’re making congressional sausage.

Andrew Card's words prompted me to search the Internet to learn all I could about sausage production with the hope that it would provide a clue as to what kind of sausage Congress could produce. I visited the “Google” search engine, typed in the word “Sausage” and voila, 918,000 sausage websites appeared on the screen. One might consider it the “Mother of All Electronic Smorgasbords”.

My sausage search proved to be quite fascinating and I picked up some pretty interesting tidbits. For example, did you know that sausage is known to have peculiar effects upon the digestive system? You can find out what they are at The Real Man’s Cookbook, located at the website: www.conservativebookstore.com! I’ve followed my share of conservative congressmen over the years and long suspected they had problems with their digestive tracts. At least now I know why.

Here are a few other interesting items. There’s actually a National Hot Dog and Sausage Council! You can visit their website at www.hot-dog.org. I didn’t check to see what they do, but if their work involves visiting fairs and taste-testing sausage sandwiches, I’d like to volunteer my services. Another website (www.vikingrange.com) boasted that sausage and bow ties is actually an old Viking recipe. Who knew?

Finally, I ran across an article about a guy who purportedly ate cat sausage, which he said, “was hot and spicy and tasted great”, in a Mexican nightclub. The thought of cat sausage sounded gross and I would have bypassed the article immediately except for its web address. www.texasonline.net/langley/columns/sausage.htm. Wasn’t President Bush from Texas? Isn’t the C.I.A. located in Langley? A good conspiracy buff might assume a connection!

I’m sorry. In all the excitement about the world of sausage, I seem to have lost track of my intended topic: congressional sausage.

Many of you may recall seeing at one time or another on television the Scholastic Rock animated version of how a “Bill” becomes a “Law”. The cartoon is a cute, informative and simplistic educational tool for teaching the basics of our legislative process.

If, however, you want to see how Congress and the sausage-making machine really work, go to the website: http://www.leafpile.com/TravelLog/Romania/Farming/Slaughter/Pig/Prepare%20Pig/PreparePig.htm. It will prove just how accurate Andrew Card's observation really was.

For those busy to search that site, let me pass on a few quotes it contained. “Making sausage is a messy business.” (Often said of passing legislation) “It also smells.” (Need I say more?) “Sausage makers blow a lot.” (Name a member of Congress that doesn’t) “The guts are taken out and fed to the dogs.” (Meaningful proposals seldom escape Congress with their gut intact) “Eventually, the sausage is boiled in pork broth”. (What spending bill isn’t?)

I also learned in my Internet search that “the fermentation step in sausage production involves the action of a lactic acid bacterium on the sugar added to ground meat”. What that means is that Congress is going to take a problem, sugarcoat it, let it ferment and then serve it to us in an intestinal jacket!

A safety bulletin at www.safetyalerts.com/articles/new.02/flabeef.htm addressed a Florida company’s sausage recall when testing revealed the presence of a bacterium in their product. The article didn’t say how the “bacterium” made its way into the sausage, but I just assumed that somewhere in the process sanitation was a bit lacking or the contamination wouldn’t have occurred.

Given that “politics is a dirty business” and the legislative process is so rampant with less than spotless hands, one should expect congressional sausage to be more contaminated than anything you’d see on the supermarket shelf.

Can I interest anyone in some sausage for dinner?