Voting on Allegations

From Stephen F. Hayes at The Weekly Standard. This pretty much sums up the Democrats, don’t you think?

Senate Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee spent much of last Tuesday afternoon shouting down their opponents, gesticulating wildly, interrupting speakers, and making unsubstantiated claims--all of this in an effort to delay a vote on the Bolton nomination. He is unfit for the job, they claim, because over the course of his career Bolton is alleged to have shouted down his opponents, gesticulated wildly, interrupted speakers, and made unsubstantiated claims. Washington at its finest.

And later in the column:

Biden finished reading and addressed his colleagues. "That's what she alleges. I don't know if they're all true or not. . . . As I've said in recent days, my staff and other staffs have received numbers of allegations about the nominee and his behavior. They are not substantiated. I emphasize, again, they're only allegations."

And yet he's prepared to vote against Mr. Bolton on nothing more than allegations!

From Joe Biden or any other Democrat, that doesn't surprise me, but the fact that there are a couple of Republicans willing to do the same thing really pisses me off.

These allegations he's speaking of come from a known anti-Bush operative and yet, they're prepared to vote against Mr. Bolton based on these biased allegations.

The delay could be a problem. Not because Melody Townsel's allegations are compelling. They're not. In the days since she first aired her grievances, more information has come to light. Townsel is a Democratic activist who founded the Dallas, Texas, chapter of Mothers Opposing Bush. Her allegations were immediately challenged and convincingly refuted by four of her colleagues, including Jayant Kolatra, owner of the firm that employed Townsel and a longtime contributor to Democrats.

I think that it's time to thin the herd and get rid of the weaklings.

If Voinovich is willing to even consider voting against Bolton on nothing more than allegations, do we really want him? Or any of the other turncoats who have showed up lately (Hagel, Chafee, McCain, etc.)? Yes, they theoretically give us a majority, but when anything of any import comes up, they always seem to side with the Democrats, so what's the difference?

Republicans have a majority in name only. In practice, it's about 50/50.

Unfortunately, we would lose our majority status. But if I'm this disgusted by their behavior and the reluctance of the party leadership to beat these guys into shape, there are probably another million people who aren't as dedicated to the Republican Party who will walk away and put us in the minority again anyway.

So what really needs to be done is to write Majority Leader Frist, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and your Senators and tell them that, unless they crack down on these people, you see no reason to continue to support them. If they won't act like they're the majority and use the power that we gave them, why should we bother? The Democrats will run the show either way unless they do something.

- The Exile