by Pa Rock
Social Commentator
Kit Bond, Missouri's senior U.S. Senator, began the day with a surprise statement that he would vote in favor of the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor to serve as the 111th Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Bond, a Republican, announced earlier this year that he would not seek re-election to the Senate, and was therefore free to vote his conscience. Would that everyone in Congress had the freedom of will to vote their own conscience!
I knew Kit Bond a thousand years ago when I was in college in Springfield, Missouri. At that time he was an assistant in the office of our state attorney general, a young man named John Danforth. Bond and Danforth would both occasionally trek to Springfield to visit with political science students at Southwest Missouri State College. Both were idealistic and focused on making the world a better place. Danforth stayed in that mode (kinda - sorta), but Bond fell off the wagon early. Danforth, of the Ralston Purina fortune, had the social connections and personal wealth to maintain a certain degree of independence from the knuckleheads and racist claptrap that tend to control Republican politics in Missouri and nationally. Bond did not.
Bond is finishing his third term in the Senate (18 years). Since moving to our nation's capital his marriage went on the rocks, he got snugly in bed with Mitch McConnell and the tobacco lobby, and his drinking problem became more or less public knowledge. Now he has a new wife and seems to be getting his life back in order. I hope that he is able to get away from Washington, DC, and find some peace and happiness in his golden years.
Good luck, Senator Bond. I'm glad that you are at last free of the Republican chains of ignorance and bigotry that have kept your spirit bowed all of these years. Your vote in favor of Sonia Sotomayor is something that will benefit America for decades. Now, if you really want to pump up your legacy on the way out the door, please consider supporting a good national health care policy with a strong public option.
1 comment:
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, I confess I never looked beond the State Auditor's race. Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault, thinking only of the health of the Missouri Democratic Party I threw Haskell under the bus, for my part I confess!
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