Many is the time I have lambasted US Senator Scott Brown on this blog. I didn’t buy his “I’m gonna be different!” shuck-and-jive one bit. I expected him to be just another politician (not Republican, politician) who blindly followed his party overlords.
Now it’s time to give the man his due credit and, yes, even speak in his defense.
Brown absolutely did the right thing in casting a vote to prevent a GOP filibuster and allow a Democrat-sponsored jobs bill to move on in the process. People argue that the filibuster is a necessary and occasionally useful tool, but I say it’s a vile corruption of the process and should be eradicated from the face of this earth with extreme prejudice. Legislation should live and die by its merits and shouldn’t be condemned to a premature grave just because someone employs the mighty power of Diarrhea of the Mouth.
So kudos to you, sir, for making your colleagues face this proposal head-on instead of allowing them to hide behind procedural roadblocking.
Now, you’d think Brown’s supporters would also hail this move. After all, Brown drummed up a lot of support by promising he would be his own man, vote his own mind, and offer something other than the usual behind-closed-doors wheeling and dealing and partisan maneuvering. He would not conduct business as usual, to use a popular sound bite.
Then I read this headline in the Boston Herald:
Tea Party anger spills on Scott Brown
Support of jobs bill seen as betrayal
What? Are you serious?!
Wait, let me keep reading. There has to be a mistake here…
U.S. Sen. Scott Brown is getting Tea Party blowback for bucking most of his fellow Republicans and backing a $15 billion jobs bill in Washington.
The Internet was aflame yesterday with right-wing indignation that Brown, who last month won a stunning upset to capture the Senate seat once held by liberal Ted Kennedy, would vote for any stimulus bill pushed by Democrats.
On Brown’s own Facebook page, he was accused of being a “traitor” and a “RINO” (for Republican In Name Only), while some claimed a memo was being circulated among conservative Tea Party members to “withdraw” support from the Massachusetts junior senator.
Christen Varley, president of the Greater Boston Tea Party, said she plans to write to Brown expressing her concern that he would approve any new spending, even though the bill he procedurally backed Monday also includes tax cuts.
“He’s going to hear from us,” said Varley, a Holliston resident. “In the end, this is stimulus spending – and it’s a disappointment.”
You’ve gotta be &$%#??!-ing kidding me.
You voted for the guy because you believed his sales pitch, right? So why the hell are you now jumping all over the dude because he actually followed through on a campaign promise?! Not just any campaign promise, the one that attracted all you discontented voters and helped lift him to a win that no one thought could ever happen in a hundred years! Did you think he’d get into office and throw you a big wink and nod and a nudge in the ribs and say, “Boy, we sure fooled them! Time to repeal Roe V. Wade! Tax cuts for everyone (making more than $100k a year)!” ?
“Diamond” Joe Quimby said it best: You people are nothing but a pack of fickle mushheads.
The sad part is that Brown did not vote for the jobs bill itself, he just voted to let the bill move on to the next step in the process. There will still be time aplenty for Senator Brown to restore your faith that he’s yet another party loyalist who will automatically stonewall any proposal that comes out of the opposition.
Oh, wait, what’s this at the end of the story?
Colin Reed, a spokesman for Brown, reiterated yesterday that the jobs bill, while “far from perfect,” will help Massachusetts, and that the senator’s job will often require “putting politics aside and working together for the good of our country.”
Or not.
This may well be the most twisted example of “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
Tags: Scott Brown
The views and opinions in the Enterprise blogs are those of the author and are not neccessarily shared by Falmouth Publishing.
