The Hill reports on the attitude of House freshmen on the Miers/Bolton contempt issue:
Despite their skittishness on other signature Democratic issues, most of the Democrats’ “Frontline” members wholeheartedly back sanctions against the White House for rebuffing the House Judiciary Committee in its investigation of the U.S. attorney scandal.
“At some point, the process has no credibility if people aren’t willing to testify,” said Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), who beat a Republican incumbent in 2006 by less than 100 votes.
I don’t think it’s fair to lump Joe in with the other freshmen, despite his small margin of victory. At this point, it’s hard to see that he’s endangered, or that a contempt vote against these Bush cronies would be unpopular in his district. More importantly, he wasn’t recruited by Rahm Emanuel, who made a point of recruiting the most conservative candidates he could find, many of whom went on to lose in the general election. Those that got swept in are now millstones around the neck of the Democratic party, a brand new crop of Democrats in Name Only, most of whom had vanished when the Republicans took control. That was the silver lining on that massive cloud, but Emanuel has diligently sought to undermine the party. (He’s now asking the Democrats to turn right on immigration, practically pushing Hispanic voters back to the Republicans, who they have deserted in droves).
But back to the subject, good for Joe for standing firm on this issue.
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