John Kerry’s quixotic vow to filibuster Samuel Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court has mean-spirited Republicans gyrating with glee and some left-of-center pundits shaking their heads.
It seems pretty obvious that there will be no filibuster and Alito will be approved and sworn in, just in time to parade with the rest of the Gang of 9 to Bush’s State of the Union next Tuesday.
There are plenty of other fall-on-your-sword issues for Dems to latch on to, so, why is Kerry choosing to make a federal case out of Alito, and why is Kennedy backing him up?
Seems to me that this is Kerry’s way of doing penance for his ill-thought-out support early on for invading Iraq, which raised such havoc with his 2004 campaign.
It’s obvious that Kerry wants to run for President again, and perhaps this is an “energize the base” thing.
Certainly, Kerry seems to be banking on public opinion turning against Alito in the coming months, and maybe that will happen: Alito will very likely become another example of Republican bait-and-switch, claiming now to be open-minded when we’re all pretty sure that, unless he experiences the much-discussed Supreme Court justice metanoia, he’ll be anti-Roe, anti-worker, and pro-executive authority.
When Alito shows his true stripes, then Kerry will hold the high moral and political ground, assuming the public gets its head out of its daily dose of soft core porn and “reality” shows to notice.
An aside: Kerry made a big mistake launching his fillibuster campaign from Switzerland, and it’s amazing to me that he continues to make the SAME mistake, over and over again: coming across as a rich snob who loves to pow-wow with his fellow effete intellectuals.
Personally, I think he lost the campaign with those ridiculous photos of him in brand spanking new camos, supposedly hunting ducks, and the whole ridiculous windsurfing episode. That’s not the way to get the attention of the masturbating mob.
As a matter of simple probability, the Dems have got to have some great potential presidential candidates or at least visible spokespersons, and they seem incapable of getting the press interested in anyone but Hillary and John Kerry.
Be that as it may, I thoroughly respect Kerry, and Kennedy as well, for their willingness to take the brunt of the latest Republican sneer and jeer for principle.
For some of us, ridicule is about the worst psychological torment imaginable. It gives me the creeps just to think about it, the most horrible rape of the spirit and the psyche that I can imagine in my worst nightmares.
That Kerry and Kennedy are willing to expose themselves publicly to the smug chuckling of a repugnant, FUD-mongering toady like Scott McLelland is the kind of heroic bravado that, literally, takes one’s breath away.
It reminds me of the scene from “The Shawshank Redemption” in which Andy Dufresne (played by Tim Hutton) crawls through raw sewage to gain his freedom, the difference being that enduring the stench and filth of Republican slime can last for years rather than minutes.
And regardless of whether they win or lose, that’s something this voter and campaign contributor will remember for a long time.