BY RICHARD L. FRICKER
As once said, “You shouldn’t drink that early, or whatever you’re smoking you need to share.” So it is with Congressman Dan Boren, Turncoat-Muskogee, and his suggestion in Midwest City over the weekend that President Obama should start taking advice from renowned senatorial nitwit Tom Coburn.
It would be laughable, except that Muskogee’s other clown is serious. Boren has been politically bed snuggling with Coburn for months; he has now come out of his closet screaming.
Boren has never been much of a Democrat. It would follow that this latest stunt is a progression in his attempt to secure re-election without drawing a Republican challenger of any strength. Coburn benefits from having a fifth columnist in the Democrat ranks thus allowing him to claim the fabled bi-partisan support within his state.
Boren was cuddled safely among his fellow congressional delegates, all of whom are Republican, when he made his suggestion before the mid-winter meeting of the Oklahoma Press Association. Coming from a “Democrat” this made news, especially in the Daily Oklahoman and Tulsa World.
Why would anyone want advice from something akin to Coburn? The senator’s penchant for misstatement and political cowardice is well documented.
Back in May 2007, long before Barack Obama was even thought of as a candidate, or healthcare reform an issue, Coburn gave a luncheon talk before the Tulsa Press Club, none of what he said about healthcare was accurate. Doubtful he has changed.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/050807b.html
Why would anyone want their president taking advice from someone who willfully misinforms the public? Once the above piece ran, Coburn changed the cancer treatment villain from England to Canada during a similar stump appearance before the Tulsa Rotary Club.
Who would want their President taking advice from someone who acts as a sex payoff bagman, secretly halts legislation that would help medically stricken members of his constituency and lives in a cult commune whose objective is to impale democracy on the spear tip of religious intolerance? Who?
Dan Boren. He appears to care not for his constituency but more for his post as a congressman. Thus no political sin is too great in his quest for re-election. The question arises as to why he is even still carried on the rolls of the Oklahoma Democratic Party. As long as the party allows behavior such as Boren’s, why should Oklahomans support their candidates?
The Democratic Party has long since lost its will to fight. This lack of will has caused many potentially viable candidates to remain on the bench. Why get into the fray if your own political party is going to cut and run at the first sign of danger.
No knowledgeable Democrat would depend on Boren to hold the horses or go back for ammunition. They should be able to depend on their own party. Leaving Boren to do the two-step across the political stage with Coburn is unacceptable.
To quote Charles Montgomery Burns, “Release the hounds!”
– Richard L. Fricker lives in Tulsa, OK and is a regular contributor to The Oklahoma Observer
I regret that Rep. Boren has fallen victim to the hypnotic effect crossing the beltway seems to have on reasonably intelligent persons. But I agree that he has.
As a public school teacher, I had the distinct priviledge of taking high school students to Washington, D.C. to participate in a week long look at goverment, Close UP.
While the students were being challenged and educated, I could follow the teachers’ program or wander about DC on my on. In one of those wanderings I walked the length of the reflecting pool and on to the Washington Monument. Near the end of the pool is a little bridge that leads to a tiny island called the “Signer’s Memorial.” Facsimilies of the signatures of the original signers of the Declaration of Indepence are engraved in stones. With each signature is the signer’s profession. These men volunteered their time and often their fortunes to the purpose of separating from England. Many of these same men were active in creating the constitution. Their original intent was that men who would and could separate from their privates lives would make up the two houses of government. I do not believe they intended or expected senators or representatives to spend the majority of their lives in government. But that is what has happened.
Rep. Boren, Senators Inhofe and Colburn need to be returned to Oklahoma as do any other member of congress who has served more than 12 years.
I know that new senators are unfamiliar with the workings of government run by committee and caucus, but what is wrong with new ideas and new plans? Rather than being forced to pass bills by negotiation or compromise, unobligated representative of the people might do just that: represent the people.
I am saddened to learn that Rep. Boren has become addicted the narcotic has has become Washington, DC.