Chris Murphy's shameful Congressional attendance record

Well, Linda McMahon's campaign ads have been pounding him for it, and while he originally pooh-poohed it, now Chris Murphy cannot deny his shameful attendance record.  Hearst's Connecticut newspapers analyzed Murphy's attendance and found that he missed 185 of 237 hearings overall in the 2007-2008 legislative session.
http://www.greenwichtime.com/news/article/Murphy-AWOL-for-three-fourths-of-hearings-3808475.php 

Now, Murphy's people make the following contentions:
1) Murphy made 129 of the 132 votes during the 110 Congress.  My reply to that, is, if he didn't attend the hearings to educate himself on the issues on which he had to vote, how did he know how to vote?  Oh, that's right, you don't have to educate yourself when you vote in lockstep with your political party.  I vote for people who are smart, who educate themselves, who show up for work; not mindless sheep who do what a political party tells them.

2) Murphy (through a spokesperson) then complains that during the time Murphy missed those meetings, McMahon was off running her business and not saving the country.  What would Murphy have had McMahon do in 2007-2008, when she was a private citizen running a company?  Would Murphy have had her serve as an unpaid surrogate for him and do his job for him (if so, he should have told her, and informed voters that he was incapable of fulfilling his duties)?  The specific (idiotic to my mind) quote is "'While Chris was fighting for consumers in Congress, McMahon was fiddling while our economy burned, orchestrating pay-per-view events featuring inferno matches and necrophilia,' Marter said." http://www.greenwichtime.com/news/article/Murphy-AWOL-for-three-fourths-of-hearings-3808475.php#ixzz24kes0ni6  It should have read "While Chris missed over 75% of meetings/hearings, McMahon was busy running a business that employed many people.  As she was not an elected official, she had no duty to perform Murphy's job functions which he was neglecting."

I'm not a fan of WWE, but at least it appears Linda showed up for work; the same can't be said for Murphy.