Censuring Durbin: The Numbers Roll In: Part II.

Jim Leahy announced the campaign to censure Richard Durbin last night on my radio show. By the time he got home, his web-site www.censuredurbin.org showed 170 signatures. By the end of business Monday he had more than 500. He figures that he’s tote up ast least 5,000 signatures a week. He wants to get at least 250,000 to present to the Senate. Do you realize that there is no other sitting U. S. Senator who can draw that much of an early response than Durbin? Russ Feingold doesn’t have the drawing power despite all the effort he has made to corral the left for his future presidential drive…Getting signatures for Ted Kennedy, no matter how long he has been in power would be a dud since Kennedy is oracular but rarely goes over the edge…Can you imagine trying to get signatures for Joe Biden? Barbara Boxer? Chuck Schumer might get some but only because he’s obnoxious—and most people understand he stays within bounds. But Durbin? He’s a natural.

Why? Because he is so slippery that were he to lose his balance and stumble walking up to the Senate podium, he’d glide up there. No one in Senate history has been so patronizing—and that’s stiff competition. Take a look at his apologies for the Pol Pot, Nazi storm troopers and Soviet gulag statement. Wringing his hands, he apologized for being misunderstood that he had insulted veterans (“I never, ever intended disrespect”. Or to Jews: “I’m sorry if anything I said caused any offense or pain to those who have such bitter memories of the Holocaust, the greatest moral tragedy of our time”).

Durbin is an orator of a type. Not one who speaks with conviction, just an orator who orates with salubrious effect. After he finished apologizing not unconditionally but “if”—“if I have unintentionally” hurt anyone, he turned on his critics with this persecution-prone utterance: “My critics from the Republican side have carefully orchestrated this! They have used all the resources…Fox, the Washington Times, Rush Limbaugh. They clearly want to keep the spotlight on me and away from other issues!” One can’t be censured for no class—but Durbin’s lack of it makes it easy. Thus the numbers roll in to Jim Leahy. Cast your vote and add your signature today. You’ll find the link-up in the left-hand column. This Blog and Jim’s will be among the very few to carry it: it’s too unconventional for many others to do so. And don’t count on the media to refer to it. We’re blacked out: are you surprised? But the liberals know about it. Check the names we’re called on this Blog’s Reader’s Comments to get a flavor of some of the vitriol. Then gargle with Listerine.