Interesting New Movement

[Guest MikeSC]

John Kerry: Not Doing His Job

 

While Gail Collins, Maureen Dowd and the rest of the “Mean Girls” on the New York Times editorial/op-ed staff are busy demanding Donald Rumsfeld’s head on a platter for the Abu Ghraib scandal, John Kerry is bringing home the bacon by faithfully voting in the U.S. Senate.

 

Or is he?

 

Two weeks ago, the Senate fell one vote short of the 60-vote majority needed to waive the budget rules and attach a 13-week extension of unemployment benefits to a corporate tax bill. When it was time to stand and be counted, 99 of the 100 Senators were present; 59 of whom supported the extension. Want to guess who the one missing senator, who most likely would have been the needed 60th vote, was? I’ll give you three guesses.

 

Bingo! The correct answer is John Forbes Kerry (D-Mass.)

 

Now, I’m not saying that the Senate’s failure to pass the extension was a good thing House GOP leaders opposed the budget waiver. Personally, I’m happy it didn’t pass. That, however, is not the issue at hand. What matters is that John Kerry would have supported it. Mr. Kerry has, over and over again, retailed the Democratic platitudes about “standing up for the workingperson” and “fighting for America’s poor,” and yet when an opportunity comes for him to show that he means what he says, he doesn’t bother. When the time comes to put up or shut up, Mr. Kerry chooses the latter option.

 

When he campaigns for re-election, President Bush has to continue being the President; but apparently when Mr. Kerry campaigns, he doesn’t need to continue being a Senator.

 

Of course, for Democrats, it’s not whether you win or lose; it’s how you lay the blame. Mr. Kerry holds Republicans culpable, decrying their rush to “push through” the bill rather than waiting for Kerry to finish campaigning in Kentucky. A gander at Mr. Kerry’s voting record during his campaign, however, proves that it’s not likely that he would ever have shown up.

 

This latest vote was only the most recent in a long string of John Kerry no-shows. From October 1st to May 5th, John Kerry’s Senate attendance was a lackluster 34 votes cast out of 147 votes taken. May of the ideals of the John Kerry campaign have been represented in bills or amendments that were voted on in his absence? A bill to increase benefits for veterans by “socking it to the rich” with a reduction of Bush tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans--the quintessence of the Kerry campaign and a dream bill for any liberal-- came up for the vote while John Kerry was gamboling across the countryside on the campaign trail.

 

Mr. Kerry is paid a six-figure salary to make his, and his constituents’, voice heard in the U.S. Senate, and yet he has not even done his job one-fourth of the time. If I showed up for work and decided to sit in the break-room for three-fourths of my shift, I would be fired. Yet there Kerry sits (or rather “does not sit,” I should say) and is still on the taxpayers’ payroll.

 

What is Mr. Kerry afraid of? The answer is simple. The dirty laundry of Mr. Kerry’ voting record will be aired before the nation in the months to come, and he knows that the only thing more damning than a non-vote is a blatantly liberal vote. Every time Mr. Kerry does his job and represents his constituency, he gives up the ghost on his own New England liberalism. For John F. Kerry, it’ just plain safer to stand on the bully pulpit and pontificate about how “obody does anything about health care” and now “o one cares about unemployment” than to cast a Democratic-leaning vote on a health-care or unemployment bill. Quite obviously, John Kerry is ashamed of what he believes.

 

“We who is faithful with little will be faithful with much, and he who is unfaithful with little will be unfaithful with much.” Senator Kerry has not been a faithful senator. What makes us think that he would be a faithful President?

 

Nick Switala

NSwitala @yconservatives.com

Chief Contributor out of Minnesota

Young Conservatives

http://yconservatives.com/Switala-87.html

 

You know, I hope Bush uses this as an issue. Kerry has missed, what, 85% of the votes in the Senate this year? He's getting paid a full salary and doing a tiny fraction of the work?

 

Do we want a President who will simply ignore his duties to pursue something else?

 

At least Dole had the balls to resign from the Senate when he ran.

-=Mike

[Highland 0]

Do we want a President who will simply ignore his duties to pursue something else?

 

Like spending more time away from the Oval Office than any other President so he rest up at his ranch?

Edited June 16, 2004 by Naibus

[Firestarter 0]

Not that I disagree with this column at all, but pretty much any statement starting with "At least Dole had the balls" is poor rhetoric at best, Mike.

[Firestarter 0]

spending more time away from the Oval Office

Uh, you think the President stops receiving briefings, taking decisions, having meetings, issuing orders, and reading reports when he's not in the Oval Office? News to me.

 

Re: edit

I've seen the inside of that "ranch," and it's more like an operations center out of a sci-fi movie than anything else. If I wanted to "rest up," I'd pick somewhere else.

[Guest MikeSC]

Not that I disagree with this column at all, but pretty much any statement starting with "At least Dole had the balls" is poor rhetoric at best, Mike.

How about "courage?

"Commitment"?

 

If a Senator is going to run for President rather than do the job he's paid for, he should quit the job he isn't doing. As it is, he is getting paid BY US to do almost nothing. Dole understood that one CAN'T do both --- and holding onto a Senate seat as a fallback position is just insulting to your constituents ("Well, I'll serve you --- unless something better comes along").

-=Mike

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

Don't forget Lieberman, who didn't resign his Senate seat when taking Gore's VP offer in 2000...

[Guest Wildbomb 4:20]

Probably lobbing a softball here, but:

 

How many other active politicians have run for the Presidency, and not given up their office? And who were they?

[Guest MikeSC]

Probably lobbing a softball here, but:

 

How many other active politicians have run for the Presidency, and not given up their office? And who were they?

Most don't.

 

And it's wrong.

 

Only the President is able to do his job WHILE campaigning for President.

-=Mike

[Art Sandusky 0]

Thank you for bringing this "news" to our attention.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

Only the President is able to do his job WHILE campaigning for President.

Don't forget First Ladies, too...

[Jobber of the Week 0]

I was bitching about this as early as the Medicare vote, where he left without a vote because losing was "inevitable" and he had to go campaign.

 

However, being a realist, I doubt he's the first Senate candidate to ever do that, and I doubt he'll be the last.

[Guest Cerebus]

Don't forget Lieberman, who didn't resign his Senate seat when taking Gore's VP offer in 2000...

Not only did he not resign it in 2000, he ran, and won, against a pedophile. I love my state's politics.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

At least he didn't lose...

[Guest MikeSC]

Thank you for bringing this "news" to our attention.

Somebody has to give you some enlightenment.

-=Mike