Jim Inhofe, from Oklahoma, a Republican senator, is going to probably have to wear thick makeup to cover his embarrassment at using the grieving souls from the Newtown massacre, as his own personal political fodder.
It is likely ever ill-advised to use freshly grieving parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers, wives, husbands, fiancee, friends…. to make your political defensiveness/rage known, when NOT demeaning those persons would be entirely avoidable… and easily so. Easy as pie.
But, 14 year ago this month, witnessing first person the many months’ long hearings on the Columbine High School massacre, held by then Colorado District Attorney Ken Salazar– and my being one of the many, many testifiers… I can say, that I saw it then too… those [I’m sorry to say that it was far more one party [R], far more, than the other party, that tried to make their churlish hay based on their fantasies about the motives of the grieving persons’ sincere inputs]….
It was clear, those particular legislators, were afraid that ordinary people, suddenly empowered by abject tragedy, were gaining ground, gearing up in significant numbers in order to bring bills before the state legislature that might change what the R legislators did not want changed– not to mention making an end run around their highnesses without highnesses’ permissions…. [many of those legislators were certainly ridiculed as less than hot messes by many for their grotesque and ‘macabre’ is not too strong a word, fantasies about who was behind whatever in testimonies by the grieving]. The whole of the sudden calling out of the grieving made decent people angry… and many voted accordingly in the next elections.
It is likely true that most of us will give an extra courtesy to listening to the veteran who has been injured over a hale fellow with a life of priviledge. We would listen often more so to a child, to a true heroic person filled with hope and determination, than to a coddled person who is carried around on a silk pillow. In a just world, actually, we would listen to all with equal patience. But sometimes those who have suffered greatly, carry more weight in certain matters of conscience and common sense.
So Jim Inhofe, wants to block votes, and it appears a strong possibility that in hyper-sweating desperation he may have decided that he could not outrun the most powerful group of people with the greatest grief, and those so sad souls having the ear of so many people, could not be defeated unless Jim Inhofe tried to make them seem puppets, only by making them seem misled by ‘someone’ [that ‘somebody named, depending since time out of mind, on who were or are a particular legislator’s greatest foe[s]– All this having to do with politics as though human voices dont matter, only the voices in Inhofe’s mind that say he wont be re-elected unless he does x. So slash at the grieving in order to remain in office.
Inhofe is 78 years old and keeps pix on his pages looking as though he has met Ponce de Leon after de Leon met his goal looking for the fountain of youth. He served in the army for two years, and took rank just above private first class: specialist 4. He then, according to his bio, became an “insurance executive.” He is originally from Iowa.
He is notable for saying he was ‘outraged’ about the public’s outrage over the treatment of certain prisoners at Abu Ghraib. He was one of only nine senators who voted against a humane treatment act of 2005 that prohibited inhumane treatment of persons in US custody.
Mr Inhofe also claims global warming has been ‘debunked.’ Believes Israel has a right to all lands based on the Bible. Wanted English to be the ‘official’ language. And says he does not hire any gay staff [how would he know, I wonder?] because it would be a conflict of interest for Inhofe as he campaigned for his seat on his motto: God, Guns and Gays. I dont know if he realized that it sounds like he’s really really for all three. He isn’t for gays.
Mr.Inhofe claims in ‘all of recorded history’ in his family, there has never been a divorce or a gay person.
Here’s Mr. Inhofe re the grieving families who came to testify in DC…
[Inhofe] said Tuesday that the gun control debate doesn’t have anything to do with the families of the Newtown, Conn., shooting victims, and that the only reason those families think it does is because President Barack Obama told them it did.
Eleven family members of Newtown victims were in Washington on Tuesday, meeting privately with senators to urge them to support a forthcoming gun package that would impose tighter background checks, crack down on gun trafficking and enhance school safety measures. Speaking to a handful of reporters, Inhofe said he feels bad for those families because they’re being used as pawns in a political fight.
“See, I think it’s so unfair of the administration to hurt these families, to make them think this has something to do with them when, in fact, it doesn’t,” Inhofe said.
When it was suggested that the families of Newtown victims actually believe the gun debate pertains to them, Inhofe said, “Well, that’s because they’ve been told that by the president.”
ON the other hand, maybe the red face of Inhofe wont be from embarrassment at all, maybe just as Hippocrates pointed out eons ago, that a dead-red complexion comes from a condition of too much bile… anger that the world is not one’s mirror.
See also Joe Gandelman’s article on Inhofe.