I was watching this video, and the main thought I had about Ken Cuccinelli wasn’t even so much that he’s a right-wing nutjob, but that he’s just completely incoherent. For instance, the core of his anti-healthcare-reform argument is that “Obamacare” is unconstitutional because it was passed by Congress and signed into law by the President, but the similar “Romneycare” is constitutional because it was put into place by a state government. Huh? Something’s constitutional simply because it’s done geographically “closer to you,” but it’s unconstitutional if it’s done further away from you? So…let’s see, for those of us who live in NOVA, federal health care reform legislation was passed and signed into law just a few miles up the road, while Richmond’s much further away, so by that “reasoning,” the state law would be less constitutional than the federal law? Yeah, uh huh. Whatever.
Second, the argument that because the government can do some things, it can do “anything” – and the implication is that “anything” includes all kinds of bad stuff – may be true in theory, but that’s exactly why our Founding Fathers put a system of “checks and balances” in place, including a court system to decide on the constitutionality of laws passed by Congress and signed by the President. It’s also why we have elections. But put all that aside for a second and consider; Ken Cuccinelli is railing against government power to do “anything,” yet at the same time is pursuing a government witch hunt against a scientist, Michael Mann, because Cuccinelli, in his official government role as Attorney General, disagrees with the scientist! If that’s not tyranny, government doing “anything,” I don’t know what is. So where does that fit into Ken Cuccinelli’s “first principles?” Again, whatever.
Finally, Cooch correctly declares that Republicans, when they were in power, completely violated everything they purported to believe in. I agree with Cooch completely on that, whether we’re talking government spending, fiscal responsibility, a decidedly non-humble and non-realist form of foreign policy, intrusions on our civil liberties, etc., etc. The question is, why should we trust Republicans now? Is there any reason to think that they have stopped violating their “first principles” now, or would stop violating them if they came back into power? Of course, there’s absolutely zero evidence of that, and Cooch should say so if he wants to be intellectually honest. But of course he doesn’t, and he isn’t. All of which adds up to, as I said at the outset, complete Cooch incoherence. What else is new?
Sign up for the Blue Virginia weekly newsletter
