What has become of politicians? They sniff chairs, they ignite "so-and-so-gate" scandals and they Twitter during work hours.
While the rest of us (some online editors excluded) are banned from using social network sites while at work, it seems, yet again, the pollies follow different rules. During newly elected President Obama's address to the joint session of US Congress yesterday, Republicans and Democrats alike sent Twitter updates ("Tweets") from their phones.
Here are some of the Tweets posted by US Congressmen and women.
Earl Blumenauer, Democratic representative for Oregon, posted 22 Tweets between 1pm and 2pm yesterday. Blumenauer twittered constantly throughout the speech, commenting, "One doesn't want to sound snarky, but it is nice not to see Cheney up there."
Clearly quite pleased with himself, Blumenauer Twittered at 1.44pm, "Requests legislation for market-based cap on carbon pollution. I am the first one standing and cheering."
But obviously not everyone is happy with the constant updates from politicians. Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri felt the need to let the world know her mother was unimpressed with her Twittering.
She wrote (quite poorly, I might add) "Ok ok. Mom's upset that I was rude at Pres speech re:tweets. For the record I tweeted bfor, at very begining, & after speech. I wanted to listen."
Senator McCaskill wrote at the beginning of the speech, "Now Supreme Ct. I did big wooohoo for Justice Ginsberg. She looks good."
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