Monday, October 19, 2009

Speaking of Dr. Tom Coburn: In a better world there'd be a way to screen morons and pathological liars out of public office

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Does it matter whether Dr. Tom is a pathological
liar or is just too stupid to know better?

by Ken

This has no doubt been reported but just reached my attention via this item from Al Kamen in today's Washington Post "In the Loop" column:

Waterboarding for kids?

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) must be feeling stressed these days over the travails of his pal, Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.). For those who missed it, Coburn took to the Senate floor last week to decry federal deficits, which are not, for him, an abstraction.

"It is deeply personal with me," Coburn explained. "I have five grandchildren. I look in their eyes, and I see the potential of their lives and all of these other children who are out there. You know what? We are going to waterboard them. That is what we are going to do. We are going to waterboard them. We are going to flood them with debt. We are going to shackle their opportunities. We are going to limit their possibilities because we don't have the courage to make the difference for their future."

Wait a minute! It's just a dunk in the water.

The Constitution, of course, is notoriously sketchy about qualifications for the offices it established -- citizenship and age, and that's about it. And in the theoretical part of the brain, we all recognize that this is a good idea. The qualifications of candidates for public office should be judged by the voters, we always remind ourselves.

Then we witness spectacles like the 30 Republican senators dubbed "'rape-nuts" by Jon Stewart, who took that strong "conservative" stand in favor of government contractors' Right to Rape. Or the spectacle of that new darling of the Loony Right, microbrained SC Rep. Joe Wilson, not just lacking the basic sense of decency to control his flapping gums while the president is speaking, but perhaps more important lying his sociopathic guts out when he felt impelled to call the president a liar. (Once again, let's apply the "if the shoe were on the other foot" test and imagine what the Loony Right's reaction would have been had a Democrat done the exact same thing while the last president was speaking, and that was a creature who lied every time he opened his mouth, who has probably never intentionally told the truth in public in his adult life.)

And on and on. Here was Howie's take last month, "Teabaggery Isn't Just About South Carolina Republicans."

Now we have our good friend Dr. Tom Coburn achieving the special feat of annihilating reason on two urgent and seemingly unrelated issues, the economy and U.S. government practice of torture. Sometimes I think it might be nice if an orator in such circumstances might be required to declare whether he knows better, and thus speaks for the Party of Liars, or truly doesn't, and thus speaks for the Party of Morons. There have been times in our history when the press felt some responsibility for at least sorting out fact from fiction, but those times seem safely past.

So we still depend on this imperfect instrument of letting voters set their own standards. A certain number of the liars and morons have indeed been shown the door in the last two national elections, but not necessarily on that particular ground. And I'm afraid the evidence continues to indicate an alarmingly high level of tolerance for the Dr. Toms and Joe Wilsons.

Sigh.
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9 Comments:

At 6:50 PM, Anonymous Balakirev said...

Coburn is regarded by many as a man of great moral standing. This, despite the grandstanding is constantly engages in, the emotional buttons he deliberately presses and the obvious lies he relentlessly promotes. Amazing, isn't it, how people judge morality not by the way one acts, but by having the correct religious buttons and affiliations?

On that same note, Coburn has been caught flat out lying about his association with Ensign, as Rachel Maddow pointed out in two interviews, side-by-side, several weeks back. I honestly don't expect the truth to have any impact on DC, where the culture is impervious to all but power, but I'd like to hope at least some Oklahomans begin to wonder about Coburn's self-aggrandizing purity.

 
At 7:16 PM, Blogger WarrenG said...

As a U.S. citizen and as a resident of the state of Pennsylvania, home of our Constitution, I call Sen. Coburn's Washington office at least once a week to express my views. I use a fictitious name and falsely state my residence as Ada, Oklahoma should the staffer want to report my call. Today I asked about health care reform, Sen. Ensign's troubles and the Energy Bill. I received the usual gobilly gook response. Before I hung up I asked, "Is Senator Coburn still living with all those men at the Hitler House on C Street?" and the staffer said he had moved out. Interesting. I wish I could get that verified.... Howie?

 
At 7:21 PM, Blogger DownWithTyranny said...

Warren, why don't you ask if you can interview him for Down With Tyranny. Surely Dr. Tom is against tyranny.

 
At 7:55 PM, Anonymous Balakirev said...

Oh, that would be rich! And I'll bet his team doesn't even know anything about DownWithTyranny. If only it could happen.

 
At 8:53 PM, Blogger Ian said...

The sad thing is that he's still the better of our two senators... :*(

 
At 11:00 PM, Blogger KenInNY said...

Thanks for raising the question of your esteemed senior senator, Ian. I always worry when we write about either Sen. Dr. Tom or the unspeakable Sen. Jim Inhofe that we're neglecting the other.

That said, I have to admire your courage in making such a clear call. Given the zest with which Dr. Tom plays his self-appointed role as the Dr. No of the Senate, I have worlds of trouble making that call, but I know for sure that you can't go wrong putting your money on the unspeakable Senator Inhofe. In fairness, though, he's had more than ten years' more time to make an excrescence of himself, including time as the chairman and now ranking minority member of not just an important Senate committee, but the committee he's positioned to do the most damage on, Environment and Public Works. As I wrote in July:

He has devoted his life to the promotion of ignorance and the forcible destruction of knowledge and honest inquiry in all known forms. He is a savage and a bully. And while he has championed pretty much the full range of dangerous and psychotic Far Right causes, he is known above all for his unwavering devotion to the pillaging and plundering of the environment.

And for four years he was chairman of the Senate EPW Committee. He remains ranking minority member. This God of his has one kinky sense of humor.


Ken

 
At 5:58 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

If you manage to become a Senator, then most likely you are moron and a pathological liar. That should be the screening process.

Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote a short story about an amended Constitution where the Senate voted for the President and a simple majority of two would suffice. Amazingly enough, not a single candidate could get more than one vote. Every Senator voted for himself.

The U.S. Senate was abolished and the United States enjoyed an unprecedented age of prosperity. (I made that up; I don't remember how it ends).

 
At 9:26 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Even Will Rogers would have had a tough time finding anything funny about these two douche bags.

What the hell is wrong with Oklahoma?

 
At 12:43 AM, Anonymous DSS said...

Tom Coburn and his felonious homeboy, Jim Inhofe "represent" me I am so so sorry to say.

Ah yes, Pubahs of The Family and the C Street compadres. Busy as can be perpetuating the New (same old) Crusade of Love (tyranny and violence)and Ministry (religious extermination). There is NO honor in their intentions or their judgements.

They would argue with the big DOG that he was wrong, might even judge him evil, to conjur evelution and geology. And, surely, he could not be so powerful as to design people with the intelligence to scientifically prove each. The Family do know best.

I proudly share no philosophy with these two and I consider both a threat to my welfare. As my neighbors continue to vote them into office, my paradigm of hope is geriatric affliction. Pox on their houses!

 

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