Several years back, actually, about 40-something years back, I was on the floor of the Louisiana House and came to observe something that I found to be a tad peculiar. I noticed that on every single vote to come to the floor, State Rep. Shady Wall (was that not a perfect name for a Louisiana legislator/) of West Monroe was voting “yes.”
Now, Shady was something of a maverick and it just wasn’t like him to be so consistent in his floor votes. Curious, I made my way up to a point where I had a close view of his desk. He was nowhere in sight. But on his desk was a stack of documents and I noticed a yellow pencil wedged between the stack and the “yes” button, holding it down so that he was recorded as voting on every bill.
Trouble was, Shady had pulled an Elvis and left the building, headed back to West Monroe.
I scampered downstairs to my office and retrieved my camera and telephoto lens and ran back to my position and zoomed in on his desk. The photo that I took that day ran four columns wide on his hometown newspaper, The Ouachita Citizen. I don’t know for sure if the picture influenced his decision or not, but Shady didn’t run for reelection.
I tell this story to illustrate how U.S. Sens. John N. Kennedy and Bill Cassidy must undoubtedly have pencils holding their yes-buttons down to record affirmative votes on every one of Donald Trump’s nominees, no matter their background or record.
Bear in mind, Kennedy likes to think of himself as a constitutional lawyer, meaning that he must be, by definition, a champion of the rule of law. So, why then, would he ever consider a thumbs-up vote to affirm someone like Emil Bove III to a lifetime seat on a federal bench? Bove is a guy who represented Trump and actually said (no kidding) that a president could ignore a federal judge’s order.
How’s that square up with rule of law, Mr. Kennedy? The vote to confirm Bove was a razor-thin 50-49. Your vote might have been the one that put him over the top. Proud of yourself?
And how is it that whistleblower documents, filed with the U.S. Justice Department was last May somehow got overlooked? The answer to that, of course, is that it’s no longer the U.S. Justice Department, it’s the Trump Justice Department. It would be interesting to hear Kennedy and Cassidy explain how they’ve been so willing to look the other way on that and so many other ethical questions that have arisen in the six months Trumps reassumed the reins. The Bove confirmation is just the latest.
From my point of view as an observer, the answer is pretty obvious: Louisiana’s two U.S. senators have whored out their own values, principles and very souls to be trafficked to the highest bidder, in this case, the TACO Pimp.
Louisiana Voice 