Brownback Flushed His Signature Issue

All you Kansans out there: do you know where your Senators stand?

Yesterday the radical pro-abortion Kathleen Sebelius was confirmed as the radical pro-abortion Barack Obama's Secretary of Health and Human Services, and both Kansas Senators supported her.  While it's no surprise, it is interesting to discuss the ramifications of Sam Brownback's vote in a larger context.

Earlier this week I had mentioned this:

In an interview with Christianity Today in October of 2007, Brownback had this exchange:

Do you see abortion as a significant part of this [Presidential] campaign?

I see it as the lead moral issue of our day, just like slavery was the lead moral issue 150 years ago.

In that same interview, he expressed frustration that he wasn't given more of a podium to put forward his views on the subject.

Now let's examine Brownback's actions on Obama's nomination of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius for Secretary of Health and Human Services.  First, we know that Obama is the most pro-death President in recent memory, if not ever ( see here, here, here).  Thus, he would naturally surround himself with people of generally the same viewpoint, would he not?  Sebelius fits right in, aggressively advancing abortion as Governor of Kansas, in part by protecting mass abortion provider George (the 'baby-killer') Tiller.  This duo have paired up to allow Kansas to become the 'late term abortion capital of the world'.

Now Obama has nominated Sebelius to a higher post, and Brownback has an opportunity to take a vocal and visible stance against someone who is the very antithesis of what he calls 'the lead moral issue of the day'.

Will he?  Don't bet on it.  He's been silent so far.

After voting in favor of Sebelius, here's his justification (emphasis mine):

From the beginning, I have said that I would support the nomination of my fellow Kansan to be Secretary of Health and Human Services. There is a long tradition of bipartisanship in the Senate of supporting nominations from the same state regardless of party; in the last 20 years, only twice have home state senators not supported someone from their home state.

So, the conclusion from this is that Sam Brownback is more concerned with bipartisanship than his own self-professed 'lead moral issue of our day'.  How's that for principled leadership?

Don't get hung up too much on the abortion angle here - everyone knows where Sebelius, Obama, and Brownback stand on the issue, and there were no surprises here.  I only mention it to illustrate how Brownback's 'principle' is in direct opposition to Sebelius' record, which tells us how vacant and non-existent Brownback's principles really are.  This could have played out on any number of issues, it just happens to be abortion in this case.  The greater point is that if Brownback cannot be trusted to uphold what he considers and professes to be his signature issue, and instead caves for the sake of bipartisanship, then he cannot be trusted on any other issue of lesser importance, either.

And that, my friends, is precisely the point of the Tea Parties earlier this month.  Americans are sick and tired of elected representatives who no longer represent us.  We are sick and tired of political calculation trumping the right thing to do.  We are tired of politicians saying one thing at home and doing another in Washington.  We are sick and tired of collective back-scratching at the expense of...well, of us.  It's almost as if Washington has sealed itself off in a little bubble, barely aware that anyone exists outside their little party except when they deign to acknowledge us peons out here.  Unfortunately, most of the control of the wealth, law, and power in this country is held within that bubble.

That's what absolutely must change as quickly as possible if we are to bring America back from the brink of disaster.  Rule of thumb to live by for the foreseeable future:

VOTE. THEM. HOME.

There's my two cents.