Lawmaker News

It was a terrible week for the right.

In my column about The GOP's Hillary problem, I suggested why the latest attempt of the GOP to exploit the death of Americans at Benghazi will probably drive Hillary Clinton's favorable ratings from 67 percent to 66 percent while favorable ratings of House Republicans may fall from 22 percent to 21 percent and the usual suspects who predicted a great Romney victory predict similar GOP landslides to come.

What did Hispanics do to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to deserve such punitive treatment from him on immigration? What did Texans do to Cruz and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) to deserve their deliberately keeping federal judgeship posts in Texas vacant for partisan reasons, as I stated in my last column?

Texas is indeed going blue. The only question is when. If Republicans sabotage immigration reform, Texas Democrats may not have to wait for a Hillary Clinton presidential campaign in 2016. Some leaders of the conservative movement and talk radio are mounting a campaign to defeat or destroy the immigration bill, acting in a way that suggests what some Republicans have called "the party of stupid."

The latest attempt by House Republicans to exploit the death of Americans at Benghazi, a one-party congressional report, cost money at a time of high deficits.

Because the report was so partisan and political and did not even offer a pretense of bipartisanship, Republicans should reimburse taxpayers for the cost of this partisan waste of their money.

Rand Paul hit the wall this week in trying to explain himself at Howard University.

He did so in trying to reach out to an African-American audience, and he should have learned the lesson at his first TV interview with Rachel Maddow. Paul defaulted back to a small-church libertarian explanation of states’ rights and federal dominance that would be perhaps useful in a legal history course and is unfortunately standard in certain libertarian circles.

“Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) decision to mount a rare talking filibuster over President Obama’s drone strike policy has — for the moment — propelled the Kentucky lawmaker to the forefront of the 2016 Republican presidential conversation,” writes The Hill’s Alexandra Jaffe.

The Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer’s claim that Rand Paul’s filibuster was a work of “political genius" indicates that we have reached the historic turning point, and the CPAC 2013 convention will reflect it. That is, the generations have shifted, and the influential Krauthammer recognizes that Paul's recent trip to Israel was sincere and enlightened and that Paul came back a different man — one who could be trusted to bring in the new generation. The fight now between Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) of the “old guard” vs. Rand Paul, Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Sarah Palin and Alaska’s Joe Miller (“young bucks”) will clearly turn the way generations always do in history’s generational conflicts: to the rising generation. And they will turn at CPAC 2013.

Rand Paul has turned the tide. He will be the new leader.

On the left side of the Drudge Report's front page this morning are two pieces about Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s 13-hour filibuster in opposition to the use of drones against Americans and President Obama’s choice of John Brennan to head the CIA.

Drudge titled the  one story “young bucks,” citing particularly Utah Senator Mike Lee and Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who stood with Paul 100 percent. The site titled the other story “old guard” in reference to a dozen other Republicans who were at the same time breaking bread with Obama. The question conservatives should be asking when CPAC 2013 meets next week is this: Which side are you on?

My column today was going to be on how government by continuing resolution has actually reduced government outlays significantly; however, today’s closed rule on the CR vote in the House trumps everything.

It now appears very possible that Sen. Robert Mendendez (D-N.J.) was the victim of a Nixon-style dirty-tricks crime perpetrated by political opponents who bribed third parties to lie about his alleged relations with prostitutes. I am not drawing conclusions, but I am calling for an investigation, after a key witness recanted her claim that Menendez paid for sex. I am calling for all media that reported the charge to give equal coverage to the recanting witness and investigations of potential dirty tricks that will surely follow. I am calling on Tucker Carlson, editors at The Daily Caller and leaders of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) to give a full public accounting of the details behind their involvement in this sordid affair.

The good news is that the House has finally passed the Violence Against Women Act. The reauthorization of the 20-year-old law is now headed to the president’s desk after previous defeats by House Republicans.

The truly bad news is that 138 Republicans voted no and 164 voted to eviscerate it with a senseless amendment.

Make no mistake, these are big numbers.  The fringe of the Republican Party in the House is no longer the “fringe.”  They are the majority.

There are probably more kinds of stupid, but two especially come to mind: stupid of the head, like Chuck Hagel’s visions of Israel, and stupid of the heart, like Mark Sanford's. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said recently that the Republican Party is in danger of becoming the “stupid party.” (Possibly sinfully, irretrievably stupid: See Bill O’Reilly’s upcoming book, Killing Jesus.) 

Sanford’s sin is not of the head, but another place. Press today say that Sanford will be running for office again in spite of his recent “peccadilloes” — not the word I would have chosen. He feels reformed enough to reenter politics. He should be allowed back into the world. Because before there was a Tea Party and before Texas Gov. Rick Perry chanted “states’ rights, states’ rights, states’ rights” at the Alamo, there was one man standing alone in opposition: South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.