First you fail as a professional football player. That gets you enough fame to fail miserably as a Congressional representative. And that leads to this:
Rep. Heath Shuler will go to work for Duke Energy, heading its federal affairs team in Washington once his term ends in January.
Duke said Shuler, a three-term Democrat who represents North Carolina’s 15 westernmost counties, will become senior vice president of federal affairs on Jan. 4. Shuler had announced in February he wouldn’t run for another term. […]
Duke’s top federal priorities next year will include tax policies on corporate dividends, a key attraction for its investors, said spokesman Tom Williams. Duke will also be interested in resolving nuclear waste issues as it weighs building new plants and in “fracking” for natural gas, a fuel Duke has used more heavily as prices fall.
Who says all you need is hard work to succeed in America? I know hundreds of people working two jobs or going to school while working to pay for school, putting in 80 hour weeks and their lives are going nowhere. Of course the jobs don’t pay much and the schools cost too much, but that’s beside the point. No the point is that if you can pretend to be good at something and kiss the asses of rich people enough, you will go far in this economy, my friends. So thank you, Heath Shuler, for showing us how to work the system.
All you gotta be is White.
All you gotta be is White.
I know, a generalization…
but still.
Unless you decide to shill for Republicans. Or are hired specifically to work the African-American caucus. Or shill to African-American communities.
I hope he produces as well for Duke Energy as he did in his two previous jobs.
Duke’s choice of fuels shows a great deal dead brain cells.
Ya know, this is kind of a cheap shot. Football players work hard. Congresspeople work hard. Their rewards may be all out of proportion to what their efforts give to society, and Shuler may have sucked at his jobs, but those are different issues. The only thing we know for certain that he is not, is lazy.
And who says he wasn’t successful as a football player? Only 700 people in the world (which is, in this case, North America, since nobody else plays football) are good enough at any one time to have starting jobs in the NFL. Only 32 are quarterbacks. That’s a pretty damn high level of achievement. You’re going to dis him because as one of those 32, he was below average – never among the best 16? That’s idiotic, too. And getting to Congress also puts him in a pretty exclusive club in his next chosen career of politics.
What we can say is that Shuler got rich and famous for his skills with an oblong ball – which is ridiculous, and a career “path” available only to men, and only men with certain physical attributes, but he didn’t create that dynamic – and parlayed that into a political career successful enough to make him one of the 1,000 or so most powerful people in the US. Most football players don’t or can’t make that transition, either. As with football, his skills and hard work (and being a white guy) got him a shot at the elite, but he wasn’t good enough to make it stick. And now he’s going to be just another wealthy corporate hack, going after the serious money you can’t get in the NFL. Corporate hackdom will probably be where he settles in and finds his niche (unless he can’t cut it there, either), until he decides he doesn’t need the money and wants to spend the rest of his days fishing and watching his grandkids.
Only in America? Yep. Absurd? Yep. Was he born lucky and blessed with significant advantages (guy, white, athletic ability)? Sure. But he’s also probably worked the equivalent of those two 40-hour jobs a lot of his life, too. The man has worked hard. The rest of it is a reflection on us, not him.