The man at the center of the FAA shutdown, which persisted for two weeks prior to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Obama reaching a deal to temporarily extend the FAA's authority, was House Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica (R-FL).
John Mica held the FAA's authority hostage in committee because the Republicans want to curtail airline employee union rights and cut subsidizes to rural airports that are located in Democratic districts.
This action, taken by John Mica, resulted in the furlough of 4,000 FAA employees and a temporary loss of 70,000 construction jobs associated with the FAA.
As you can imagine, John Mica came under a significant amount of heat for his actions, and now he is attempting to play the victim card and act surprised -- no, shocked! -- that people would take his actions so personally.
“I’ve had a brutal week, getting beat up by everybody,” Mica told me, minutes after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced a deal that would end the shutdown and avoid the cuts to regional air service that Mica wanted. [...]
“People don’t have to get so personal,” he said with a sigh. “A lot of people hate me now and think I’m the worst thing in the world for what I did.” It’s “this sort of gotcha,” he said, “that’s changed the dynamics of people working more effectively together.”
Aw. John Mica had a brutal week inside the air conditioned offices on Capital Hill. All those mean, hardworking, newly unemployed people beat him up with their mean words. Someone better change his diaper.
I think I just had a flashback of former BP CEO Tony Hayward saying he "wants his life back" after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon caused the largest oil spill in national history.