Sold out by the righties

I hate to say this about a House impeachment manager, but I feel sorry for Bill McCollum. He spends a career quietly doing the bidding the of the Christian right and voting along with the Republican leadership. He racks up a 93 percent scorecard rating with the Christian Coalition and a 100 percent voting record with National Right to Life in his last year in the House. But it isn't good enough. Because backs a modest loosening of stem-cell research restrictions and voted for hate-crime bills (on the theory that attacking people because of race, religion or sexual orientation is, you know, a bad thing) the Christian Rights totally turns on him. This is not a turn-the-other-cheek crowd. For his minor deviations from conservative dogma, the groups he served for years attack him as "anti-family" and part of "the gay agenda." And this happens after the Bushes already had dissed him by recruiting and supporting Mel Martinez to run against him. I'd feel kind of sold out by my party if I were him. No surprise then that the final TV debate among the GOP Senate candidates got harsh. During the debate, McCollum dramatically pulled a new Martinez flier out of his suit coat pocket, saying it "accuses me of catering to the radical homosexual lobby." "That is just despicable," he told Martinez. "It's nasty. It's not true. It's absolutely incorrect." McCollum demanded that Martinez condemn the flier and apologize, but Martinez did neither. Instead, President Bush's former housing secretary said: "Words were used that were not mine, and were not of my choosing. Those words were spoken by others." That's right, Mel, deniablity. You have learned Mr. Rove's lessons well. Lane | 28.8.04 | Comments: Post a Comment GO Back!

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