Who Let the Kook Out of His Cuckoo’s Nest?

Ken Cuccinelli’s opinionated hammer came down forcefully the other day when he claimed that there’s a “50-50” chance  that Virginia’s unnecessary voter identification bills will pass the muster of review by the U.S. Department of Justice. Given Kookinelli’s recent track record, buyers of this conclusion beware.

Cuccinelli also thought that his crusade against Michael Mann and his climate science would succeed as well. The Virginia Supreme Court ruled otherwise.

But what the gun-slinging and crusading of Cuccinelli has revealed is a man whose conceit is unbounded, even by political standards.

Cuccinelli went on to claim that “This president [President Obama] and his administration are the biggest law breakers to run the federal government in our lifetimes.” Did the George W. Bush administration already drop from Cuccinelli’s memory? What an incredible statement!

There is your average political rhetoric and then there is Cuccinelli’s political rhetoric. Ask me to define it, I couldn’t; “I’ll know it when I see it.” It’s the type of political bluster that takes every issue and violently pulls it into the far-right and warped world of Cuccinelli and his cult of adherents. It’s a type of political demagoguery few politicians in our own jaded and partisan times have been able or willing to muster.  

Yet Cuccinelli survives his own reckless statements because so many shrug their shoulders in apathy or simply shut him out. But shutting out Cuccinelli isn’t going to stop this political cowboy from towing his spurs into the Executive Mansion. Can we even imagine the full extent of the consequences?

The right and the left will always have differences, that’s why they’re the “right” and the “left.” But when we do differ, we can at least not continually accuse one another of being “fascists,” “communists,” “THE biggest lawbreakers,” etc.

It’s time to soften the harsh political rhetoric in American politics. The process starts when political figures like Cuccinelli are expelled from public office, permanently.