Politics > Politics-USA > Memogate causes cornered, embarrassed right wingers to go after Orrin Hatch
| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Harry Hope" |
| Date: |
24 Feb 2004 12:06:07 PM |
| Object: |
Memogate causes cornered, embarrassed right wingers to go after Orrin Hatch |
That theory may explain why conservatives are so quick to lambaste
Hatch over the computer files scandal.
Fundamentally, they don't trust him.
They suspect him of being a Manchurian Senator.
Even as he's waged their judicial war, they've continued to doubt his
devotion--and have been waiting to pounce on any hint of his past
gay-hugging, Kennedy-loving weakness.
Which says fairly depressing things about today's Republican Party.
If the Bush-era GOP can turn even an open-minded Republican like Hatch
into a ruthless foot soldier, and if conservatives will still turn on
him viciously for even the slightest display of conscience during
Memogate, what hope is there?
From Slate, 2/20/04:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2095803/
Sen. Orrin Hatch
If this conservative senator isn't safe from conservative attacks, is
anyone?
By Michael Crowley
Washington's conservative activists have found a traitor in their
midst, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch.
The occasion is Memogate, the internal Senate investigation into
whether Republican aides unethically (and perhaps illegally) tapped
into Democratic computer files containing private judicial-nomination
strategy memos and leaked them to the press.
The more the story balloons in the media, embarrassing Republicans and
distracting them from trying to confirm more judges, the more
right-wing activists savage Hatch, the man they hold responsible for
it.
To them, the Utah Republican has done something "acutely damaging to
the struggle to get conservative judges onto the federal bench," as
one National Review writer put it this week, in a column widely
e-mailed among disgusted activists.
Another activist ominously warned in the Washington Post of a
"thermonuclear" punishment for Hatch.
Also in the Post, Gary Bauer fumed over a "demoralized Republican base
around the country" and sounded about ready to stage a public hanging
on Capitol Hill.
No matter that Hatch has spent the past three years fighting nonstop
to confirm George Bush's judicial nominees.
After Hatch declared himself "mortified" by the file-stealing
allegations and said he supported a formal investigation, angry GOP
activists--who want to downplay down the scandal--accused him of being
a weak-kneed appeaser of Democrats.
The National Review's Timothy P. Carney even likened him to Neville
Chamberlain.
______________________________________________________
Have ya noticed? Right-wingers will even devour their own when they
get cornered. Never liked the guy. This doesn't change things.
Harry
.
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