EckerNet.Com

As by now you are certainly aware, our own Senator Coleman voted against the amnesty bill the second time around. As a result he was part of the flood of Senators that suddenly became stalwart opponents of amnesty and defeated this piece of shit bill 46-53. For finally getting it right and following the wishes of his constituents, he is to be commended.

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…but wait a second….was he actually listening to his constituents? Facts seem to suggest otherwise…namely that he was only looking out for his own political behind.

In the US Senate, the Senate votes in alphabetical order. If you aren’t present, or for whatever reason, you choose not to cast a vote at the moment they skip you and move on. Later on, you can approach the clerk and register your vote. You can also change your vote at any time, as Senator Brownback chose to do when he realized he was on the wrong side of a pretty clear-cut issue.

Now if one were truly voting on principle and/or listening to their constituents and truly meant what they were saying by voting, one would expect that Senator to vote when his/her name was first called. Or at the very least before the fate of the bill was already decided.

Now if one was just covering their political ass and just wanted to cast the vote that would give them the least hassle, they would wait until well after the vote was decided and then cast the vote that paints them in the best light. Guess what our brave Senator Coleman chose to do.

I’ll give you a hint, it was the last option as he was the 47th “Nay” vote…when only 40 were needed. In fact Coleman cast his vote directly after Brownback’s infamous switch.

Had Coleman really decided that this bill hadn’t improved enough, or decided to listen to the people he is supposedly supposed to represent, he could have easily cast his vote when first called upon, or even before the bill’s fate had been decided. Instead he stood on the sidelines and watched, waited for the fortunes to turn one way or another and then chased after the bandwagon and climbed aboard. I find no courage in that, nor anything I can say I respect.

President Bush is another matter. Agree with him or not, he has his principles, and he follows them. Normally I agree with him, but on this issue I disagreed with him. But I knew that he acted as he did because in his heart he thought he was doing what was right. THAT I can respect, even if I fundamentally disagree with him. Sure you can make arguments about some of his actions, such as essentially calling opponents bigots and Un-American, but on the basic issue, he acted with honor. Sure you can try to convince him with your reasons, facts, and rationalization. If he doesn’t still see your way and instead stands on his principles….ok stubborn, but he’s doing what he thinks is right.

Coleman was another matter. Already well known for trying to play both sides of any issue, he just did whatever benefited him politically. If Coleman’s true justification was to allow the Senate to improve this bill, then he would have voted no on cloture, as more amendments were to be debated. If his “new” reasoning was that none of the upcoming amendments would have improved border and employment enforcement enough, I would counter that that was also the case before the first cloture vote when he yes. In reality this bill never had the chance to be “improved”. Mostly because the process was flawed from step 1….well actually step 20 because Harry Reid skipped steps 1 through 19.

Last time this bill was up, Coleman voted against cloture because the process was flawed and the usual committee steps were skipped and Senators were prevented from offering amendments to improve it. How was that ANY different this time around?? In fact it was worse this time around, yet Coleman voted for cloture before he voted against it.

No, Colemans Nay vote on cloture was not based on principles, ideals, ideology, beliefs, or even the wishes of his constituents. He waited until he knew which team would be holding the victory party and then invited himself to that party. That I can’t respect, nor should I.

Now some have said that we conservatives should give Coleman the support he deserves and fall back on our promises to eat our own. To that I would say, why?? Have we completely given up standards? On this issue does he not rightly deserve criticism?? Coleman has proven himself unprincipled and untrustworthy on this issue. I’ve had enough of RINOs I can’t trust, I don’t support them. Perhaps our politicians wouldn’t take our support for granted if they knew it had to be earned, not granted just because you have an “R” next to your name.

UPDATE : Wow…that was spooky.  About 5 minutes after I finished writing this post and scheduled it for publication, I got a call from the Coleman campaign asking for a donation.  When I told them no, and that I was refusing because I didn’t trust Coleman on the…..the staffer finished my sentence for me, including my reasoning.  Apparently they’ve been getting a lot of responses like mine.  Since the one thing politicians seem to listen to is money, perhaps that is a good thing.