The Congressman from Joplin Tweets
BY Nancy Scola | Tuesday, May 24 2011
Rep. Billy Long, the congressman representing Joplin, tweeted last March about tornado warning tests.Rep. Billy Long is a professional auctioneer who emerged from an eight-way Republican primary last year to become, eventually, the congressional representative from the 7th district of Missouri, which happens to include Joplin, the city that, of course, has been devastated by a viscous tornado that killed more than a hundred people. As befitting a modern member of Congress, Long is tweeting from on the ground in Joplin. As "@auctnr1," the gregarious representative been busy pointing people to local radio stations that are broadcasting useful information for survivors, retweeting Governor Roy Blunt's link to fundraising organizations, and sharing what it's like to survey your ravaged district from a Blackhawk helicopter. "You see the severity of it on the ground," tweeted Long earlier today, " and the magantude [sic] of it from the air."
A twist: as he does it, Long is finding himself confronting a Greek chorus reminding Long of his past tweets when it comes to tornado survival. (Admittedly, it's a tiny chorus, of just a few voices at this point.) What they're shoving back at Long is a tweet that the congressman posted more than a year ago, in March 2o10 -- a snarky post about local country station KTTS's tornado warning test. "War of The Worlds Part Duex?," joked Long at the time. Local blogger Bungalow Bill picked up the tweet, and set it in the context of Long's co-sponsorship of federal bill that, says Bungalow, would have sold off the radio frequencies that amateur radio operators make use of during emergencies, like, say tornados. At least one other blogger picked up that post, and it has provided fodder for Long's critics. Tweeted one, "@auctnr1 mocked the tornado siren warning system & preparedness drills. Turns out it was good for something eh Billy?" (Joplin is said to have had 20 minutes of warning.)
All of which makes for a case of the tweeted public record being harnessed to hold a public official to account, fairly or not. But I can't help recalling an amusing conversation I had with the amiable Long after an event, back while he was still a congressman-elect. Long said he was eager to figure out how to best use Twitter while in office, even though his aides were -- he said with a laugh -- gently suggesting that perhaps he should had them the keys to the account. Nothing doing, Long said he said. There's no replicating Billy unless you are Billy, and if you'd met him, you'd tend to agree. That's for better or for worse, perhaps. But at least we're in the same position here as we were when Long's fellow Missourian, Senator Claire McCaskill, tweeted about "looking and feeling fat": whatever blame there might be to go around, there's at least no pinning it on staff.