In a very recent post, I made a major error that I must retract.

First, I will say that my information came from an email from a usually “you can take it to the bank” source of information that I should have fact checked regardless, and second, I got the subject of the post intertwined with another Republican congressman, Walter Jones, who also hails from North Carolina. Mr. Jones was evidently a co-initiator of the no-confidence bill with two Democrats.

Nonetheless, such an error on my part was, at best, inexcusable and for that part of the post in question I can only apologize profoundly.

The revelation and subsequent research was the result of a telephone call in response to my post by Kevin Klein, a member of Congressman Robin Hayes’ staff, in which he apologized for the duplicate response and corrected me on the subject of Hayes’ vote on the “no-confidence” issue. I caught the call on my voice mail late yesterday and returned it this afternoon, to their DC offices.

****************************************

Supplementally:

While talking with Mr. Klein, I brought up the matter of the generic response his office sent in reply to my email, pointing out that the way it was presented, the email contained a paucity of information that committed the congressman to nothing as far as how he planned to vote on the issue of H.R. 254.

Mr. Klein replied that Congressman Hayes intended to vote nay on the bill, and said that since the bill was still being drafted, responses were, per SOP, noncommittal as provisions and language might still be rewritten before a final product was brought to a vote.

I suggested that the reason for the duplicate of the generic reply was that a staff member had obviously, not being all that interested in the content/ my concerns or input, had simply seized on a keyword (H.R. 254) and sent the reply. He could really do nothing but agree that that might have been the case.

1. I explained to him that such responses are not what we, the constituents expect when we make inquiries — that we want candid answers on our representative’s position — and cited the fact that these generic form letters are extremely discouraging as they only indicate a politician’s reluctance to offend a potential new voter.

2. I also indicated the concern of most conservatives at the thought of a bill that favors one group of citizens passing — the precedent that would be set would enable those pressing for said group(in this case, homosexuals) to push other bills through that would further give the subjects of their agenda special rights that exceed those of the rest of the citizens of the U.S.

3. I told him that conservatives are concerned at the way our Republican representatives on the Hill back down all to often on issues when the Democrats employ language to the effect that opposing them might constitute “racism”, lack of concern for “the children”, etc, in fear of losing votes from certain quarters, and that we expect them to fight for those ideals upon which we elected them to begin with rather than allow the left to twist and tear the Constitution in order to meet their own agendas.

4. I pointed out that since the beginning of our Iraq enterprise, while the Democrats have loudly, unfairly and incessantly attacked the President as they have, the Republicans on the Hill have kept their own council so as not to rock the vote boat, leaving George Bush in the lurch to defend himself against these attacks — and that the conservative voting base expects the starboard side of Congress to be as verbal as the left, in defending the policies of the Commander-In-Chief.

I made mention of the results of the 2006 elections and suggested that those Republicans remaining in Congress might learn a lesson from that and rethink their obligations to those of us who put them there before a re-run occurs in 2008.

Mr. Klein said he agreed with me on “2″, and would pass along the rest of my points to Robin Hayes. He also invited me to visit their offices in DC ,when I’m there in mid-March to join the counter-protest against the legions of anti-war leftist wingnuts who will be descending on the Nation’s Capital for their usual treason, to discuss whatever concerns I might have and get “face-to-face” about it. I will definitely take him up on it.

*************************************

Again, my sincere apologies for posting the inaccuracy of the Hayes vote, and I look forward to the discussions I expect to have in a couple of weeks in DC.