By Carter Clews
Michael “Snoop Dog” Steele, once again falling into the rapster slang, of which he has of late become so enamored warned the Republicans in the Senate earlier this week that they better stop “slammin’ and bammin’” self-anointed Puerto Rican icon Sonia Sotomayor.
And one waited for Snoop Mike to launch into a break dance, flash his latest gang signs, and shout menacingly into the microphone:
I’m tellin’ you now
And you better listen how
Sonia is the best
The [bleep] has the zest
And you Repub defects
Better show some respect
Blah, blah, rhyme, rhyme, all in tortured couplet time.
The fact is, though Michael Steele seems to have survived the effort to remove him from power before he turns the entire RNC into Snoop Dog’s Father Hood East, the embarrassing GOP chair’s graceless back peddling on one issue after another is causing a growing revolt among grassroots donors nationwide. The newly formed American Liberty Alliance is waging a highly successful effort to persuade the Republican base to withhold its contributions from the RNC until the RNC begins withholding its support (tacit or active) from Barack Obama.
As one ALA supporter told this writer, “When I get an appeal from the RNC now, I send it back with a note saying, ‘When you start speaking for me, I’ll start spending on you.’” Added another, “When the RNC phone bank calls for money, I say, ‘Sorry, you must have mistaken me for an idiot.’” Not the sort of responses on which empires are built.
No wonder former Senator and presidential candidate Fred Thompson told the Washington News Observer (WNO) broadcast news team late last week, “There is a lack of Republican leadership right now.” He added, “We’re going to have to get our act together and stick to our principles.”
Particularly on the Sotomayor issue, Thompson — unlike Steele, Minority Leader McConnell (R-KY), and even ranking Judiciary Committee member Jeff Sessions (R-AL) — pulled no punches. Having previously voted against Sotomayor when she was nominated for a lower court seat, Thompson stood his ground while the GOP “leadership” ran for cover.
Said Thompson in the exclusive WNO interview, “I voted against Judge Sotomayer in 1998 because I thought she was too liberal, that she was more likely to make up the law than follow the law … And from the looks of things, my concern was borne out in her later decisions.” No back peddling. No excuse making. No, “Well, we’ll just have to wait and see” flimsy excuses for taking a stand.
Asked specifically about Sotomayor’s bald claim that “white males” could not make decisions as wise as those made by Latino women, Thompson was equally as candid – and courageous, calling the statement “kind of remarkable”:
“Judge Sotomayor’s statement is really kind of remarkable. I don’t know why a sitting judge would ever say anything like that. A person’s background should not be determinative in regards to a case to litigate. It goes to show that with her – as with a lot of people on the bench – it’s about them more than it is a lot of times about the law and the litigants before them. It’s about their processes, what they think, what they believe. In many cases, its [the court’s] is a passive role … and statements like that indicate that she very well may not follow that.”
Thompson concluded the interview by warning that if Sotomayor gets to the Supreme Court she might try to become a “super legislator,” adding, “And that’s not the way our system is set up.”
Now, to the average American, all of that sounds kind of logical, straightforward, and well- warranted. But, apparently, that’s not the case with Messr’s McConnell, Sessions, and, of course, Snoop Mike.
In one of the rap star’s more memorable songs, A Bitch I Knew, Snoop Mike’s linguistics instructor melodically informs his audience:
See I was taught by, and I was taught I
better move on somethin fast if I thought I
could claim a dame, or game her brain
Or tame a man, not with the same old game
It’s time Mr. Steele, et al, follow suit and learn that to tame a man, you’ve got to stop playing the same old political game. Fred Thompson clearly has.
Carter Clews is the Executive Editor of ALG News Bureau.
