Sam Brownback
Rolling Stone’s Jeff Sharlet writes an article about Sam Brownback, “God’s Senator.” For some contextual background, if you haven’t read Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas then you should do so right now.
The most disturbing part of the article (there’s a lot, I know) is dead center:
Over the years, Brownback became increasingly active in the Fellowship. But he wasn’t invited to join a cell until 1994, when he went to Washington. “I had been working with them for a number of years, so when I went into Congress I knew I wanted to get back into that,” he says. “Washington — power — is very difficult to handle. I knew I needed people to keep me accountable in that system.”
I hate to argue with you Mr. Brownback (ok, I don’t, I think it’s fundamental to our democracy that I argue with you) but the people who keep you accountable while you are one of Kansas’s Senators is the House of Representatives, the Executive Branch, the Judicial branch and your constituents - not a fundamentalist cell of your choosing.