It's been a rough few news weeks for 3rd C.D. Brian Baird.  Tomorrow, he goes on with Lars Larson to do a radio town hall, which he reluctantly agreed to after weathering several days of negative press.

Ahead of what's sure to be a debut wrought with fireworks, I thought it fair to review some of the junketeering Representative Baird has been accused of recently.

In comparison to his reluctance to hold town halls--and his associated reprehensible comments--Baird's travel to far-flung exotic destinations has encountered relatively far less outrage.  Still, his jet-setting has garnered him as much, if not more, time in the national limelight.

Two stories, "Lawmakers' Global-Warming Trip Hit Tourist Hotspots" and "Congress' Travel Tab Swells," rightly question what Baird and other lawmakers were doing taking tax-payer funded trips to the Galapagos Islands, Barrier Reef, and Antarctica.

The Congressman complained to at least one newspaper that he was being unfairly targeted, and that these efforts were aimed at "silencing" him.  Uh-huh.  Baird's glass jaw caught the eye of the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin:

If Baird can't take a few jabs -- fair or unfair -- he ought to look for another line of work.

The Union-Bulletin's editorial brings into sharper focus a very plausible explanation for Baird's bizarre behavior earlier this month. Somewhere in the last 6-terms he's served, our Congressman became unaccustomed to being challenged, whether by the media or his constituents.

Now, when called to account for his reluctance to meet and listen to his constituents, or asked to justify actions like exotic overseas travel, Baird reacts with brashness, and angrily lashes out at critics with incomprehensible explanations that nobody, except the Congressman, seems to be buying.

If Baird doesn't have the temperament to represent us anymore, and act with the civil and cool demeanor befitting a U.S. Congressman, then perhaps it's time he moved on.

(Sidenote: If Baird really wanted to study the oceans, he could come have a look at the intense ocean acidification problem we're having along the Pacific County coastline. Instead, he's smiling through a scuba mask somewhere in the Southern Pacific, studying "the oceans" and "global warming." As if he couldn't examine both issues right here in his own district's backyard.)

cross-posted on NWDigest.com