There were myriad unwise words said today in the Senate. These undoubtedly were the unwisest:
On the same day that a federal judge whose family was assassinated testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee about courthouse safety, Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) described Democratic efforts opposing some of President Bush’s judicial nominees as “leadership-led use of Cloture vote to kill, to defeat, to assassinate these nominees.”
Unbelievable! I just wrote Sen. Frist via his web form. I doubt anyone will ever read it, but I feel somewhat better for having raged at him.
You spoke the following words in the Senate today:
THE ISSUE IS NOT CLOTURE VOTES PER SE. IT’S THE PARTISAN LEADERSHIP-LED USE OF CLOTURE VOTE TO KILL, TO DEFEAT, TO ASSASSINATE THESE NOMINEES. AND THAT’S THE DIFFERENCE.
Senator Durbin seemed willing to give you the benefit of the doubt about your words; I’m not. An apology to all judges, regardless of political persuasion, and to all Americans, regardless of political persuasion, is in order, and sooner rather than later.
You need to take a deep breath, sir, and collect yourself, because you have surely lost your grounding in rationality and perspective. Based on what I heard today,
I should have added:
“Have you no shame, sir?” echoing the words that finally ended the McCarthy madness in the 50s. But of course, they are long past shamelessness.
Meanwhile, Judge Urges End to Verbal Attacks. Judge Lefkow asked lawmakers to “publicly and persistently repudiate gratuitous attacks on the judiciary.”
To their credit, the AP story includes this:
In recent months, several Republican members of Congress have lashed out at judges involved in the Terri Schiavo case and others. Schiavo, a brain-damaged Florida woman, died after her feeding tube was removed, her parents’ legal challenges unsuccessful.
Sen. Rick Santorum (news, bio, voting record) of Pennsylvania said, “The actions on the part of the Florida court and the U.S. Supreme Court are unconscionable.”
“This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most, and that will change,” House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said. “The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior.”
Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition and head of the Christian Broadcasting Network, appeared on ABC’s “This Week” this month and criticized the federal courts. Robertson said, “The gradual erosion of the consensus that’s held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings.”
Lefkow said that kind of “harsh rhetoric is truly dangerous.”
Thankfully, many Democratic senators, such as Durbin, are speaking up. But power-hungry cretins like Frist are not about to. Wouldn’t want to upset those who will be bringing all those “religious” voters to the polls. That word needs about a million quote marks around it when referring to anyone who would give the time of day to Robertson, Dobson, et. al.