Obama misses Senate votes

Barack Obama burst onto the scene with a big splash about three years ago. A real breath of fresh air, it seemed. Bright, honest and forthright, everything missing in today's politicians. It seemed too good to be true and maybe it was.

Almost immediately, he took an extended trip to Africa. Who paid? I don't know, but it's hard to understand what he could do there to represent the people of Illinois. Lately, he doesn't seem very interested in doing his job in the Senate. His voting record makes that clear.

For the two months from Sept. 7 through Nov. 8, there have been 19 bills that he neither voted for or against. Bridge repair funding, CHIP reauthorization, National Defense Authorization Act for 2008 are just three bills that he apparently thought weren't worth his time.

One can only assume that he didn't bother going to work on the days those bills came up for vote.

Apparently he did stop by for a day or so. He did vote yes for permanent residence for undocumented immigrants. (undocumented is politicalese for illegal) He voted yes for troop reduction in Iraq, yes for Habeus Corpus for detainees of the U.S. and yes for increasing the time between troop redeployment to Iraq. That's four out of 23.

Of course Mr. Obama has been pretty busy running for president and raising money. But the people of Illinois elected him to be our representative in the Senate and the American people pay him a pretty good amount of money to do so.

If he is no longer interested in doing that job, he should resign and let someone do it. Someone who is interested.

Ron Flowers

Elk Grove Village