Below The Beltway

I’ve got to hand to to some of the guys on the conservative side of the blogosphere; they are vigilant in searching out threats to American freedom. Their latest targets ? Jazz and a redesigned website.

First, it seems that Nancy Pelosi has, horror of horrors, changed the music you hear when call Congress and you’re put on hold:

If you’ve ever been stuck on hold with a congressional office in the past, at least you’ve been able to enjoy some good patriotic music, as opposed to the lilting tones of generic smooth jazz that have been driving elevator users insane for decades. For years, congressional offices have played patriotic anthems as the background music during hold times.

Not any more. After we were startled by the hold music when we called a House office recently, sources on Capitol Hill informed us this week that the Democratic House leadership has made a sweeping decision that congressional offices now have the options of “smooth jazz” elevator music or no music at all.

Not surprisingly, this was met with the clack-clack-clacking keyboards of outrage from the right wing blogosphere:

Gotta love it. There is no choice to have any patriotic music. I guess Nancy P. is upset about such music. Granted, much of those marches and stuff can be a little rough, but, I have heard other songs, like City Of New Orleans by Arlo Guthrie, songs that talk about America. I even heard a rock version of God Bless America one time while calling Elizabeth Dole’s office. And, it is kinda nice to know that elected federal officials care about America……woops, I forgot, Democrats.

Reality, of course, is just a little different:

Here’s what happened: Congressional offices have traditionally been able to have a choice of music or no music. The CD that had been in the congressional muzak system for “a long time” was a “patriotic tunes CD.” The CAO’s office wanted to test a program giving people a choice of multiple CDs and decided to try out a jazz CD because it’s “what a lot of companies have when you’re on hold.” However, based on the feedback they received, they simply decided to go back to the old system.

So, problem solved.

Now the right can go back to worry about real problems, like Kathyrn Jean Lopez’s obsession with website design:

The United States Mission to the United Nations has a new look online. If you check out the redesigned site, you see it’s decked out in United Nations blue, with the U.N. logo prominently displayed.

Fine, the U.N. logo is there. But where is the United States flag? And where did the red, white, and blue that used to introduce the site go?

Here’s the website that aroused Lopez’s ire:

This, apparently, makes us less patriotic than the British, French, Russians, and Chinese — all of whom include some form of design incorporating their flag in their websites. Of course, Lopez doesn’t seem to notice the Great Seal of the United States up there in the left hand corner which has — wait, what’s that ? could it be ? — an American flag in it’s design.

But, you know, maybe Lopez has a point. Today its a website redesign. Tomorrow, the black helicopters arrive. Eternal vigilance, dudes.