The fall of Richard Lugar
The man has been in the U.S. Senate for 36 years, he is eighty years old, and he thought he should serve until he was 86, which would seem to be an index of how hard the work of a senator really is. Evidently he didn’t even have an Indiana residence, though I don’t see how that is legally possible. And he is something of a RINO. The L-dotters
gloat over Lugar’s political demise.
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Randy B. writes:
A point I had never really considered: age. I know several very active 80 year old people, a handful of whom are non-competitive distance runners (I am neither). But, to a person, they joke openly as to how often during a day they have to take cat naps. I am over 50 and empathize with the need to take more frequent breaks to study the inside of my eyelids. As all elected officials tend to promote themselves as the ultimate vessels of truth, knowledge, and an ability to work at 100 percent capacity during 12 to 18 hour marathon sessions, maybe he is able to put in a full day’s work; call me doubtful.
I only hope that we here in Utah can send the massively overworked Orrin Hatch into the same retirement community.
If you were here and had to suffer through the litany of radio ads promoting Hatch as the second coming and the marrow that binds Utah to the spinning earth, you would not be able to hold down nutrients. The NRA is running a modern day version of an inspirational song from Braveheart telling us all how much of a hero Mr. Hatch is to the 2nd Amendment. The NRA holds Hatch as an A plus supporter of our gun rights. This further reveals the lie that is the NRA leadership, as they have long since left the fight for gun rights, and are promoting compromise at almost every turn. I wonder if there is another Senator Hatch. The one whose given name is Orrin was a longtime friend and dinner guest of Ted Kennedy. Hatch who supported the 1993 Clinton individual mandate. Hatch who decried the Tea Party movement (“I despise these people” referring to Freedom Works) for being disconnected from reality. But over the last year and a half (or since we removed Bob Bennett) he has been courting them as though we were looking for a Prom date. Hatch who ran his original campaign on a guarantee of no more than two terms. We need to remember that Hatch voted against the 1986 McClure-Volkmer Firearms Protection Act. In 1993 Hatch refused to filibuster the Brady Law. In 1996 he supported the Lautenberg amendment. After the Columbine shooting he voted for amendments that would have banned gun shows. In 2007 he supported the Veterans Disarmament Act. In 2009 he voted against the repeal of the ban on guns in national parks. In 2011 he opposed an amendment by Rand Paul that would have exempted information on gun buyers from the hands of Obama.
What has Hatch done lately? Well in an attempt to leave people with a good taste in their mouths, he has voted against both Kagan and Sotomayor. He recently voted to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, and has stood up for a couple of pro 2nd Amendment pieces of legislation. He also FINALLY (this year) signed on with 57 Senators against the UN’s Small Arms Treaty, but this does not take away from his many years in support of the treaty. A squishy RINO year does not and cannot make up for 35 years as a left leaning moderate.
I don’t know that this would qualify as criminal, but Hatch has been on the Senate Finance Committee for 18 years, and he is promising that if re-elected (he would be the chairman) he will send a balanced budget amendment to the President. Funny, because after 18 years of voting at every turn to increase the debt ceiling, he is not going to work against his 18 years of growing the size of government?
Congress is inept and corrupt. If memory serves, our Founding Fathers gave us some advice about “refreshing the tree of liberty” from time to time. Our tree of life (liberty) is dying because our elected officials are watering it with five hour energy drinks.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 09, 2012 03:35 PM | Send