Rick Esenberg Defends William Jefferson Against the Wild Flailings of Fred Dooley and Patrick McIlheran

by folkbum

Now that the Republican Party has turned so viciously and cold-heartedly on Larry Craig (R-Denial), the right-wingéd bloggity true believers have turned to measures so desperate I'm embarassed for them. (Usually, I'm just embarassed by them.)

This, for example, is a post, in its entirety, from Fred, one of our local luminaries:

Hey?
Is William Jefferson (D) still in Congress?

Because, you know, some version of "Democrats do it too!" is all that's left after their claiming of the moral high ground for so long. That very post added insult to the injury that was a recent blog entry by my bff Patrick McIlheran (which reminds me to direct you to this damned good post by Michael Mathias).

I believe, and have argued repeatedly before (here on the blog as well as elsewhere) that William Jefferson should not be in Congress. That he remains in Congress is not so much anything I can control--I will not offer a defense of his being there.

Noted conservative rationalizer (he's a professional, you know) Rick Esenberg, though, offers a surprisingly spirited defense:

[T]o remove or suspend a[n elected official] is to interfere with a choice that the voters have made.

So . . . I guess that's that. Maybe Fred needs to take the William Jefferson issue up with Rick, instead of liberals like me.