Like most of the rest of you, I've been getting hammered for days now, by email, phone, text message; from senators, governors, House reps, activist groups, even the President, to support Martha Coakley in her chase for the Massachusetts seat in the US Senate.
Up till now, I haven't posted here my reasons for not supporting her. But this devastating piece by Dorothy Rabinowitz sums up all my concerns. Here's a taste:
If the current attorney general of Massachusetts actually believes, as no serious citizen does, the preposterous charges that caused the Amiraults to be thrown into prison—the butcher knife rape with no blood, the public tree-tying episode, the mutilated squirrel and the rest—that is powerful testimony to the mind and capacities of this aspirant to a Senate seat.
If you don't remember the Amirault case, you're probably sleeping better at night. The pre-school child-abuse witch hunts of the 80's remain an indelible blot on any history of justice and reason in this country. The Amiraults were at the center of one of the prosecution frenzies of that era.
Coakley wasn't there for the original farce. But when the case finally began to unravel, when judges and even the Governor's Board of Pardons and Paroles recommended commutation, Coakley, as Middlesex DA, continued to hound and persecute the family.
Read the story for yourself. I can't believe I'm linking to something at the Wall Street Journal, but the story is what it is. If you don't believe anything from the WSJ, look it up elsewhere. Just do a search on "coakley amirault" and see what you find.
And then don't expect me to make a single phone call for her, or donate a dime, or even show up to vote. I'm being told over and over that her vote would be crucial to the health-care "reform" bill. Well, I've had to swallow an awful lot over that bill already. So much worthwhile stuff was cut out, so much inept and feckless bargaining with implacable nose-jobbers, that there's not much of a bill left to care about. And now I'm told that I have to swallow Martha Coakley, too?
That's one bite of this s**t sandwich I'm not going to take.
Update: Well, so far, it's almost a tossup between the folks who hate me because they think that Martha's election will mean 60 Democrats in the Senate and those who just really didn't appreciate the humor in my "sandwich" metaphor. Regarding the former, are you counting Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman as Democrats -- in which case, why does the current Senate bill stink so bad? For the latter, maybe you're right, and I shoulda stuck to camels, straws, that sort of thing.
But being castigated as a troll and even a freeper? That's just goofy. I've been following these Massachusetts witch hunt cases for awhile, and was wondering if I shouldn't say something here. I'm just glad this wasn't my first posting here. I'll stand on my previous writing, for anyone who can wipe the blood out of their eyes long enough to read them. The blizzard of abuse and HRs was educational, though. Wow.