The Republicans in the Senate, the meanest and most narrow-minded among
them occasionally acting as if they want the Democrats to have the
White House into the next century, need to free Loretta Lynch this week.
They need to stop using abortion language in an anti-trafficking bill
for cover, they need to stop using Lynch’s support for President Obama
on immigration as cover, they need to stop insulting Lynch the way they
have for months as they have delayed a vote on confirming her as our
next attorney general for the simple reason that they can.
The issue here was never Loretta Lynch’s policies, always about
President Obama’s. They have used her to get at him, because to the end
they remain obsessed with getting at him. No wonder Jeb Bush stood up
for Lynch in New Hampshire. Bush didn’t just show grace in doing that,
he also showed more common sense than his brother showed in eight years
as President.
Jeb Bush has to know that Sen. Mitch McConnell hijacking this process
does him absolutely no good, the way it does him no good to have
McConnell as an important voice and face of the Republican Party. As
long as McConnell is, too many voters completely wide-open about the
upcoming Presidential campaign will continue to think the party is still
owned and operated by scrubs who think they can push around Loretta
Lynch for sport.
“And for what?” Rep. Pete King said Sunday. “Because they think it scores them a few political points? With whom?”
Pete King, out of Long Island’s 2nd Congressional district, makes it
clear out of the box that he is pro-life. But King has been around long
enough — and is smart enough — to know that this anti-trafficking bill
that McConnell treats like the Voting Rights Act of 1964 should never
have informed Lynch’s confirmation in the first place.
“All you’ve heard from our party for a very long time is how much
contempt they have for (current Attorney General Eric) Holder,” King
said. “Now they’re presented with Loretta Lynch, who is by far the best
attorney general they could ever have expected this President to
appoint, and they still hold the thing up.”
Sen. Bob Corker (R.-Tenn.) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union”
that he expects Lynch’s nomination to finally be approved this week.
Only Corker has no way of knowing that for sure. And you know that
President Obama came at all of them the other day, saying, “Enough. Call
Loretta Lynch for a vote, get her confirmed, let her do her job. This
is embarrassing.”
She has the chance to become the first African-American woman to serve
this country as attorney general. But she has not come to this moment
because of race or gender, but because of her credentials, a career as a
U.S. attorney during which she was better at serving her country in her
job than the senators who now treat her as if she doesn’t matter, nor
does the job that should have officially belonged to her months ago.
“They need to get this done now,” Pete King, Republican, said of
Republicans in the Senate. “You know what these guys ought to do? They
ought to talk to cops about Loretta Lynch, because I have. As a rule,
cops don’t have much use for politicians, and have even less use for
liberal politicians. Only the cops I know love Loretta Lynch.”
McConnell and his people continue to act as if it is poor Mitch
McConnell who is the victim here, that it is the Democrats who are the
bad guys. McConnell’s chief of staff, Don Stewart, almost made it sound
the other day as if it is Democrats in the Senate who are the ones
selling women and children into slavery. These people must be under the
impression that the whole country thinks as slowly as they do.
Of course Loretta Lynch, who prosecuted political corruption as U.S.
attorney out of the Eastern District, can see how her own process has
been corrupted. The President nominated her nearly six months ago. She
was confirmed by the Senate Judiciary Committee two months ago. Still
she waits, a prisoner of the clown college that the U.S. Senate has
become. Then these senators scratch their heads and wonder why so many
in this country have a higher opinion of professional wrestlers than
professional politicians.
“There are times when the dysfunction in the Senate goes too far,” the
President said the other day. “This is an example of it.”
“Think about something,” Pete King said. “They’ve gone out of their way
to hold up the approval of someone they ought to love replacing a guy,
Holder, they all say they hate.”
This isn’t about immigration, or about that human-trafficking bill. It
was never about that bill. It is just the Washington, D.C., version of
stalling traffic on the George Washington Bridge, for spite. The
government version of slow jamming. Free Loretta Lynch.
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