Look, Coburn and the rest of you guys can sing McCain's praises all you want. I don't deny that he has his good points. And I have been until recently a huge Coburn fan.
But it is pure underhanded crap for Coburn to accuse CONSERVATIVES in Congressional positions of power of being the ones who led the Republican Party to bigger government, higher spending, and that massive prescription drug entitlement.
Read on...
*************************
To catch up the reader, there's a little tiff between two well-known conservatives, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) who endorsed Sen. John McCain during the primaries, and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) who endorsed Gov. Mitt Romney. Both have major conservative bona fides, both are accepted BY genuine conservatives AS genuine conservatives. Yet they are butting heads. Feb 14, Santorum posted an Op-Ed in the Philadelphia Enquirer explaing why, even at this late date, conservative support for McCain remains considerably less than enthusiastic. Coburn replied Feb 22 in a letter-to-editor to the Inquirer, titled McCain is the conservative, also quoted in full by our own RedState's Adam C here. Adam sides with McCain here. I side with Santorum. Nobody who reads RedState should be surprised by either.
*************************
While Santorum's letter offers a veritable smorgasbord of topics on which conservatives either oppose McCain outright, or have severe misgivings about him. He concedes two issues on which conservatives do not differ:
Set all this against the issues on which he's led conservatives over his three decades in the Senate - opposition to pork-barrel spending and support of the Iraq War - and you can sense why conservatives worry about where McCain's passions lie.In what is positioned as a rebuttal, Coburn jumps on one of those two points of agreement, while relegating the whole array of conservative issues with McCain as focusing on the specks of dust in McCain's eye while ignoring the plank in their own eye..
Yet, I'm troubled that many critics are focusing on the specks of dust in McCain's eye while ignoring the plank in their own eye.Fine, Senator Coburn. Good debating tactic, I'll give him that. Ignore the charges, trumpet one of the two positives you have, and construct a straw man to discredit the opponent. Well-done.
The plank in the eye of some self-appointed conservative jurists, particularly those from former Republican leadership ranks, is this:
Under their leadership, Republicans grew the government faster than the Democrats we replaced.
Under their leadership, Republicans attempted to secure a governing majority through the corrupting practice of earmarking.
Under their leadership, Republicans passed the largest entitlement expansion since Lyndon Johnson, passing on more than $9 trillion in new debt to the next generation so we could win the 2004 election.
McCain fought against all of those trends while many so-called conservatives were marching our party off a Bridge to Nowhere.
However, he THEN proceeds to call out conservatives (or "so-called conservatives" and "self-appointed conservative jurists") as being responsible for the GOP's big-spending, earmarks, and that odious Medicare Prescription entitlement.
Cheap, Tom, cheap. You of all people should know the difference between conservative leaders and Republican leaders. History remembers that event through a somewhat different lens. Everybody should know that the revolt among GOP ranks that nearly derailed the prescription drug entitlement was led by conservatives - Hensarling, Pence, Flake, and gang in the House.
Excerpts from a 2003 article in Liability & Insurance Week entitled FRIST VICTORIOUS ON MEDICARE; NINE REPUBLICANS VOTE NO, bolding is my emphasis:
--At the end of his first session as Senate Majority Leader, Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN) emerged victorious Nov. 25 by a vote of 54 to 44 after a bruising battle over a Medicare prescription drug bill that pitted him against conservative members of his party as well as most Democrats.
--Republicans also will be attacked from the conservative wing of their party. Subsequent news accounts confirm intense pressure from House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-TX) and the White House used to persuade recalcitrant House conservatives to vote for the bill. --In his syndicated column last week, columnist Robert Novak wrote the conservatives almost defeated their president and their congressional leadership because "there were only 210 yes votes after an hour (long past the usual time for House roll calls), against 224 no's."
--Only one conservative in the Senate, Sen. Wayne Allard (R-CO), was persuaded to change his vote. He reluctantly agreed to vote for the proposal, which he considered far too costly because it contained the health savings account provision House conservatives had insisted be in the final measure.
Meanwhile, in the House, the fight against pork and ever-upward-spiraling spending has been led -- repeat that, LED -- for more than a decade by the conservative RSC, and championed by well-known movement conservatives like Hensarling, Pence, and Flake.
It was and remains CONSERVATIVES who stand opposed to this generation's Republican Party that looks like 'Dem-lite'. It is low and cheap for Coburn to suggest otherwise in defense of his candidate.
E Pluribus Unum
movement conservative
opponent of pork
opponent of the Medicare Prescription Entitlment
opponent of the climate change religion, international criminal courts, amnesty
and...
proponent of First Amendment free speech, drilling in ANWR, building more refineries, border fence (yes, THAT #@@$$!!! border fence), and Kirk-style conservative principles
Kill the terrorists
Protect the borders
Punch the hippies -- Frank J
Recent comments