by Dennis Sanders on April 3, 2010
Erick Erickson and his crew over at RedState are going after “liberal” Republican Bob Bennett, Senator from Utah for basically not agreeing with them 100 percent of the time and daring to work with Democrats at times. He has gone as far as to make a flyer listing Bennett’s “sins.” Here are some of Bennett’s deviations from so-called conservative orthodoxy:
COURTS ? August 3, 1993 voted for Ruth Bader Ginsburg for the Supreme Court ? July 29, 1994 voted for Stephen Breyer for the Supreme Court ? October 2, 1998 voted for Sonia Sotomayor to be Circuit Judge.
So, you are supposed to vote against the other party’s nominees to the Supreme Court simply because they are the other side? Last I checked, the President gets to choose the nominee and unless the person sacrifices puppies on a weekly basis, they should be approved.
Oh and by the way, I checked with Project Vote Smart and found out that “liberal-loving” Bennett also voted for Samuel Alito, and for John Roberts to be Chief Justice. Last I checked those were Bush appointees.
Oh, but it gets better. He moves on to my favorite part: the “gay agenda.”
GAY AGENDA ? Authored health care legislation that provides mandatory coverage for same sex domestic partnerships. ? August 3, 1993, voted for Thomas Payzant, Assistant Secretetary for Elementary of Education. Payzant drove the Boy Scouts out of the San Diego schools due to their views on homosexuality. ? June 15, 2004 voted to add “sexual orientation” as a special class in the Federal Hate Crimes law. ? September 18, 1997 Voted against prohibiting the National Endowment for the Arts from funding obscene or anti-religious works with taxpayer dollars. ? May 24, 1993 voted for gay rights activist Roberta Achtenberg to be Assistant Secretary for Equal Opportunity at HUD. Achtenberg led several efforts to punish or the Boy Scouts for its policy on homosexuality.
Well, we can’t have someone supporting those evil homos not do we? When it comes to the “gay agenda,” Bennett has a mixed record in my view. Of course, I am one of the evil gays, so I would say that.
Anyway, looking at Project Vote Smart, it shows that he voted in 2006 to support debate on an amendment to the Constitution that would define marriage as between a man and a women. Bennett said back then:
“In recent years, we have witnessed the efforts of activist judges to strike down state laws aimed at protecting traditional marriage, including state constitutional amendments that had received overwhelming support from voters. This type of judicial mischief is of great concern to me. In a democracy, the representatives of the people ought to be heard.“I am persuaded that the state has a vital stake in the continuation of the institution of marriage as a fundamental building block of a stable society. I am very reluctant to amend the Constitution, but I voted today to allow debate on the Marriage Protection Amendment so that we could search for a logical way to allow voters to take this issue out of the hands of unelected jurists. Although I did not agree entirely with the language of the amendment, I wanted the discussion to begin.
I should add, that he also supported the Defense of Marriage Act back in 1996, so Harvey Milk, he ain’t.
Read the whole document. I could go on, but the point I’m trying to make is that Bennett is not the liberal that Erickson and his minions make Bennett out to be.
Bob Bennett is far from being a moderate Republican. He is far more conservative than I am. But even though I don’t agree with him on all the issues, I do agree with him enough to support him. He worked with Ron Wyden (yes, a Democrat, such a big sin) in coming up with a decent health plan that was far more free-market oriented than the Obama plan.
In the end, that’s not enough for people like Erickson. They want someone who doesn’t think for themselves, but one who follows the “conservative line.” They aren’t interested in someone who can govern conservatively, they want someone that can entertain them, that can call Democrats evil and excite the base. Erickson wants “cotton candy conservatism” and nothing more. He wants someone like Michelle Bachmann, who says a lot but governs little. She’s certainly entertaining, but don’t expect her to work for the interests of the nation.
It was bad enough when people like Erickson was going after moderates like me. But now that they are going after rock-solid conservatives like Bob Bennett, well you have to wonder what is the future of the GOP.