Ed O'Reilly mocks small business

Here's a quote from Ed O'Reilly, putative Democratic challenger to John Kerry, from his interview with Jon Keller, on the subject of John Kerry's chairmanship of the Senate Small Business Committee:

“It’s not an important committee – it’s small business.”

Okay. Does Ed O'Reilly really want himself on record insulting the state's (and since this is a federal post he's seeking, the country's) entrepreneurs and small business owners?

I hardly know where to start, but let's try this. While Ed O'Reilly was trying to make political points by mocking the SBC and John Kerry, it turns out that Carolyn Kirk, Mayor of Gloucester, which is, by the way, Ed O'Reilly's own city, was appearing before the SBC at the invitation of Kerry to discuss the ways in which the credit crunch is impacting the small businesses of Gloucester.

Kirk said she had received a phone call while on route to Washington for her date with the Senate committee that informed her that Kerry and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, both D-Mass., had just won a great concession from the federal bureaucrats in charge of the New England groundfish fishery.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had dropped its effort to convince the state of Massachusetts to limit direct payment to fishermen. The bureaucrats had wanted to use the money to buy fishermen out of their vessels and fishing permits as a means of reducing pressure on the rebounding stocks.

Kerry, Kennedy, Gov. Deval Patrick, the fishermen themselves and city officials had the idea of infusing capital into the surviving small businessmen still dedicated to fishing, to help them weather the shortage of fish and improve their assets.

Kirk had greeted Kerry with a "thank you" for managing the high pressure negotiatons on fishing.

That the nation's entire class of small cap-entrepreneurs shared many of the frustrations bedeviling the fishing boat owners wasn't lost on Kerry either.

In an e-mail message to the Times yesterday, Kerry said, "We've seen our state's struggling fishermen go without promised help for months while relief was tangled in red tape." He contrasted that impasse with the lightening-fast salvation of Wall Street. "We've seen Bear Sterns get bailed out while everyday people face foreclosure."

By the way, Ed, in case you hadn't found this yet, the Senate bills Kerry has sponsored and co-sponsored can be found here. Kerry is also on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in charge of the crucial subcommittee in charge of Near East South and Central Asian Affairs. More information on his committee assignments can be found here.

It's true that the impact of a senator's accomplishments is probably not best measured by seniority. But being willfully reductive about John Kerry's work in the Senate doesn't make you look good - it makes you look ignorant.