'He doesn't want to work weekends?' Congressman Ro Khanna asks about Grassley in Union Hall (on Saturday)

BURLINGTON, Iowa — Congressman Ro Khanna, speaking Saturday with workers at a union hall in Burlington, after traveling much of the weekend in the Midwest to promote the creation of more high tech careers and a modern industrialization of the nation — what he calls a new economic patriotism — asked workers what they thought of U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, complaining about having to work last weekend and miss a family reunion.

“Did you see his comment about he doesn’t want to work weekends?” Khanna said.

The IBEW Union hall filled with laughter. After all, it was Saturday, and the people here know what it is like to work, really work.

“Please retire,” one of the workers said of Grassley.

“Look, I’ve got a 5 year old, 3 year old. I miss them when I am out traveling. When you set out to serve the country you make sacrifices, and there are a lot of hard-working people who leave their kids all the time to make ends meet,” Khanna said.

Minutes before, Khanna heard a heartbreaking story of a union worker who committed suicide after losing his job and house.

On Friday, Grassley, who clearly and inexplicably has control of his own Twitter account, tweeted:

The tweet generated a storm of mockery for Grassley — whose re-election campaign is actually named GrassleyWorks. The tweet isn’t a Boomer moment because at age 88 Grassley is part of “The Silent Generation” — except when it comes to these sorts of unforced errors on social media.

What jumps out at me is not the substance of the entitled remark, the sort of observation he should be making to staff, not the public, but the lack of discipline.

The reality is public service means weekend work, night work, and a lot of it, as Khanna demonstrated himself with travels recently in Appalachia and Wisconsin and Illinois and Indiana and Iowa, all to promote what he sees as essential, the rivering of tech careers and wealth out of his own Silicon Valley to the rest of the nation, especially forlorn regions, communities left behind by the digital surge.

Carroll County, Iowa, my home, produces many people who serve in the military. On Friday, I joined veteran friends at a fundraiser for the VA. I can still recall visiting with their families when they were deployed and marveling at their desert-heat-sculpted frames when they returned from Iraq and Afghanistan with marked weight loss. (They’ve gained the weight back.)

The Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, Ret. Admiral Mike Franken had this take on Grassley’s online complaint-box moment:

People who choose careers in public service are signing up for lives that demand time away from families. This includes journalists. There are no weekends in the newspaper business, which is no doubt why Grassley’s generating such eye rolling, and commentary, in the media. Newsweek published a blistering piece on it.