Good Ol' Boys

The question “Have you seen ‘Brokeback Mountain’?” is enough to send members of Congress running in the other direction and their spokespeople into a frenzy of excuses about why their bosses have no answer.

Skip Brown, spokesman to conservative Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), the founder of the Values Action Team, said in an official response: “We are going to take a pass on this one.”

Lawmakers often decline to speak on subjects, and that’s often telling. Of 14 congressional Republicans’ offices called for this story, only three would comment.

A spokesman for Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) said his boss has not seen the movie and “probably won’t go there,” as far as commenting the movie’s effect on politics.

Some members of Congress say it isn’t the film’s subject that is making them stay away, but a lack of time. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) said that the last movie he saw was “March of the Penguins,” and that was on a plane to Antarctica.

Rep. John McHugh (R-N.Y.) also blamed time constraints.

“I haven’t not seen it as a political statement,” McHugh said, explaining that late-night paperwork keeps him too busy to see any movie.

Reported by Andrew Barr for The Hill