Janice Shaw Crouse
Friday, January 22, 2010
Everybody is talking about what Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts means for 2010 and 2012. Will the recent spectacular and surprising GOP victories be short-lived phenomena or a major revolution? Clearly, Democrats should be worried — attractive candidates with appealing narratives and authentic messages are winning even in the most unlikely of circumstances.
Combined with the GOP victories in Virginia and New Jersey, it is easy to argue that Americans are disillusioned with President Obama’s ambitious attempts to “transform” our country — through government takeover of health care, his far left appointees, a massive liberal/socialist agenda and, especially, his plan to make taxpayers pay for abortions. Pundits are calling the win “a massive victory,” “a shocking turn-about” “a tsunami,” “a devastating loss for the Democrats,” “a game changer,” “a shot across the bow for the arrogant House and Senate leaders,” “a referendum not only on health care reform but also on the openness and integrity of our government process,” “the biggest political upset in our lifetime,” and “a stunning victory in favor of governmental transparency.”
While the GOP, and many Independents and Democrats, believe that Coakley’s resounding defeat sends important messages to the President and to Capitol Hill, the presidential modus operandi remained unchanged — Obama blamed Bush. Illogically, he argued that the same frustrations that caused people to vote for him are still around after eight years and that’s what drew angry voters to Brown.
Sorry, that argument won’t fly; we now know that Brown won even in Hyannisport and in Barney Frank’s district. To help the President grasp the ramifications of Brown’s victory, here are three important messages that he needs to understand.
Message #1: Authenticity trumps rhetoric any time, especially now. While the Democrats are “talking the talk” and passing out a billion here and billion there like it is paper money, the public is forced to live the “walking the walk” part — seeing real dollars thrown away and crushing deficits piling up. Brown drove a beat-up truck around Massachusetts (authentic); Obama’s most memorable lines in his last-minute campaign speech for Coakley were making fun of that truck (rhetoric). Now, even the ever-present teleprompter communicates a jarring disconnect between Obama’s words and his indecipherable meanings.
The Massachusetts victory also signals that Americans are seeing through political spin and elitist rhetoric. Americans see through the far left policies advocated by Obama, Reid, and Pelosi, and they soundly reject them. They are signaling: no more tax and spend; no more ObamaCare; no more billion dollar deficit increases; and don’t even think about taxpayer funded abortions. It is important to note that those messages are the currency of the TEA party activists and conservative organizations who have brought the issues into focus and exposed the leftist agenda, political machinations, and demagoguery for all to see.
Message #2: You can fool some of the people some of the time, but not most of the people all the time. Trust is an essential factor for political credibility; once it is gone, it is virtually impossible to regain. The public gave Obama the benefit of the doubt over Jeremiah Wright, the questionable and corrupt early political appointees, and a dozen other acts that contradicted his campaign promises. Obama squandered the public’s trust to the point where his poll numbers are notoriously low and a Huffington Post columnist is cynical about him. Now, his reputation for oratory has diminished; he couldn’t even fill the hall for Coakley’s campaign rally.
On the positive side, Brown’s victory sends hope that Americans won’t stand for destructive “change” that violates our freedom, overrides the deeply-held moral and religious beliefs of many of our citizens, and destroys the foundations of democracy. This is especially heartening in light of Brown’s broad appeal in Massachusetts — polls after the election reveal that he captured the middle class as well as the blue collar vote — indicating that Main Street Americans see through the leftist agenda of both giving handouts to Wall Street and General Motors, as well as taking money from Joe the Plumber to “spread the wealth around.”
Message #3: America remains, essentially, a moral nation. While political correctness is pervasive throughout American culture and people want to “live and let live,” the Judeo-Christian values of honesty, keeping your promises, respect and equality for all, and the rejection of corruption are foundational for most Americans’ belief systems. The President argued that we are not a Christian nation, yet certain common political behaviors — condescension toward the electorate, being a hypocrite, lying, stealing, unjustly attacking others —are still considered morally reprehensible. Even the President’s most ardent fans are dismayed at the number of Obama’s questionable, far left and corrupt political appointees.
Historians often say that Presidents are shaped by disastrous external events — for instance, Lincoln and the Civil War, and Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs. The people of Massachusetts and the people of the nation overwhelming agree that the health care reform bill is a disaster, and they don’t want their taxes to fund “the largest expansion of abortion in our nation’s history.”
Americans “get” the messages of the Massachusetts special election. The question is whether President Obama understands that ramming through his unpopular socialist agenda, judges, and political appointees undermines his own future — as well as that of this nation?
Showing posts with label Martha Coakley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Martha Coakley. Show all posts
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
The Meaning of Brown
Charles Krauthammer
Friday, January 22, 2010
WASHINGTON -- On Jan. 14, five days before the Massachusetts special election, President Obama was in full bring-it-on mode as he rallied House Democrats behind his health care reform. "If Republicans want to campaign against what we've done by standing up for the status quo and for insurance companies over American families and businesses, that is a fight I want to have."
The bravado lasted three days. When Obama campaigned in Boston on Jan. 17 for Obamacare supporter Martha Coakley, not once did he mention the health care bill. When your candidate is sinking, you don't throw her a millstone.
After Coakley's defeat, Obama pretended that the real cause was a generalized anger and frustration "not just because of what's happened in the last year or two years, but what's happened over the last eight years."
Let's get this straight: The antipathy to George W. Bush is so enduring and powerful that ... it just elected a Republican senator in Massachusetts? Why, the man is omnipotent.
And the Democrats are delusional: Scott Brown won by running against Obama not Bush. He won by brilliantly nationalizing the race, running hard against the Obama agenda, most notably Obamacare. Killing it was his No. 1 campaign promise.
Bull's-eye. An astonishing 56 percent of Massachusetts voters, according to Rasmussen, called health care their top issue. In a Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates poll, 78 percent of Brown voters said their vote was intended to stop Obamacare. Only a quarter of all voters in the Rasmussen poll cited the economy as their top issue, nicely refuting the Democratic view that Massachusetts was just the usual anti-incumbent resentment you expect in bad economic times.
Brown ran on a very specific, very clear agenda. Stop health care. Don't Mirandize terrorists. Don't raise taxes; cut them. And no more secret backroom deals with special interests.
These deals -- the Louisiana purchase, the Cornhusker kickback -- had engendered a national disgust with the corruption and arrogance of one-party rule. The final straw was the union payoff -- in which labor bosses smugly walked out of the White House with a five-year exemption from a ("Cadillac") health insurance tax Democrats were imposing on the 92 percent of private-sector workers who are not unionized.
The reason both wings of American liberalism -- congressional and mainstream media -- were so surprised at the force of anti-Democratic sentiment is that they'd spent Obama's first year either ignoring or disdaining the clear early signs of resistance: the tea-party movement of the spring and the town-hall meetings of the summer. With characteristic condescension, they contemptuously dismissed the protests as the mere excrescences of a redneck, retrograde, probably racist rabble.
You would think lefties could discern a proletarian vanguard when they see one. Yet they kept denying the reality of the rising opposition to Obama's social democratic agenda when summer turned to fall and Virginia and New Jersey turned Republican in the year's two gubernatorial elections.
The evidence was unmistakable: Independents, who in 2008 had elected Obama, swung massively against the Democrats: dropping 16 points in Virginia, 21 in New Jersey. On Tuesday, it was even worse: Independents, who had gone 2-to-1 Republican in Virginia and New Jersey, now went 3-to-1 Republican in hyper-blue Massachusetts. Nor was this an expression of the more agitated elements who vote in obscure low-turnout elections. The turnout on Tuesday was the highest for any nonpresidential Massachusetts election in 20 years.
Democratic cocooners will tell themselves that Coakley was a terrible candidate who even managed to diss Curt Schilling. True, Brown had Schilling. But Coakley had Obama. When the bloody sock beats the presidential seal -- of a man who had them swooning only a year ago -- something is going on beyond personality.
That something is substance -- political ideas and legislative agendas. Democrats, if they wish, can write off their Massachusetts humiliation to high unemployment, to Coakley or, the current favorite among sophisticates, to generalized anger. That implies an inchoate, unthinking lashing-out at whoever happens to be in power -- even at your liberal betters who are forcing on you an agenda that you can't even see is in your own interest.
Democrats must so rationalize, otherwise they must take democracy seriously, and ask themselves: If the people really don't want it, could they possibly have a point?
"If you lose Massachusetts and that's not a wake-up call," said moderate -- and sentient -- Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, "there's no hope of waking up."
I say: Let them sleep.
Friday, January 22, 2010
WASHINGTON -- On Jan. 14, five days before the Massachusetts special election, President Obama was in full bring-it-on mode as he rallied House Democrats behind his health care reform. "If Republicans want to campaign against what we've done by standing up for the status quo and for insurance companies over American families and businesses, that is a fight I want to have."
The bravado lasted three days. When Obama campaigned in Boston on Jan. 17 for Obamacare supporter Martha Coakley, not once did he mention the health care bill. When your candidate is sinking, you don't throw her a millstone.
After Coakley's defeat, Obama pretended that the real cause was a generalized anger and frustration "not just because of what's happened in the last year or two years, but what's happened over the last eight years."
Let's get this straight: The antipathy to George W. Bush is so enduring and powerful that ... it just elected a Republican senator in Massachusetts? Why, the man is omnipotent.
And the Democrats are delusional: Scott Brown won by running against Obama not Bush. He won by brilliantly nationalizing the race, running hard against the Obama agenda, most notably Obamacare. Killing it was his No. 1 campaign promise.
Bull's-eye. An astonishing 56 percent of Massachusetts voters, according to Rasmussen, called health care their top issue. In a Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates poll, 78 percent of Brown voters said their vote was intended to stop Obamacare. Only a quarter of all voters in the Rasmussen poll cited the economy as their top issue, nicely refuting the Democratic view that Massachusetts was just the usual anti-incumbent resentment you expect in bad economic times.
Brown ran on a very specific, very clear agenda. Stop health care. Don't Mirandize terrorists. Don't raise taxes; cut them. And no more secret backroom deals with special interests.
These deals -- the Louisiana purchase, the Cornhusker kickback -- had engendered a national disgust with the corruption and arrogance of one-party rule. The final straw was the union payoff -- in which labor bosses smugly walked out of the White House with a five-year exemption from a ("Cadillac") health insurance tax Democrats were imposing on the 92 percent of private-sector workers who are not unionized.
The reason both wings of American liberalism -- congressional and mainstream media -- were so surprised at the force of anti-Democratic sentiment is that they'd spent Obama's first year either ignoring or disdaining the clear early signs of resistance: the tea-party movement of the spring and the town-hall meetings of the summer. With characteristic condescension, they contemptuously dismissed the protests as the mere excrescences of a redneck, retrograde, probably racist rabble.
You would think lefties could discern a proletarian vanguard when they see one. Yet they kept denying the reality of the rising opposition to Obama's social democratic agenda when summer turned to fall and Virginia and New Jersey turned Republican in the year's two gubernatorial elections.
The evidence was unmistakable: Independents, who in 2008 had elected Obama, swung massively against the Democrats: dropping 16 points in Virginia, 21 in New Jersey. On Tuesday, it was even worse: Independents, who had gone 2-to-1 Republican in Virginia and New Jersey, now went 3-to-1 Republican in hyper-blue Massachusetts. Nor was this an expression of the more agitated elements who vote in obscure low-turnout elections. The turnout on Tuesday was the highest for any nonpresidential Massachusetts election in 20 years.
Democratic cocooners will tell themselves that Coakley was a terrible candidate who even managed to diss Curt Schilling. True, Brown had Schilling. But Coakley had Obama. When the bloody sock beats the presidential seal -- of a man who had them swooning only a year ago -- something is going on beyond personality.
That something is substance -- political ideas and legislative agendas. Democrats, if they wish, can write off their Massachusetts humiliation to high unemployment, to Coakley or, the current favorite among sophisticates, to generalized anger. That implies an inchoate, unthinking lashing-out at whoever happens to be in power -- even at your liberal betters who are forcing on you an agenda that you can't even see is in your own interest.
Democrats must so rationalize, otherwise they must take democracy seriously, and ask themselves: If the people really don't want it, could they possibly have a point?
"If you lose Massachusetts and that's not a wake-up call," said moderate -- and sentient -- Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, "there's no hope of waking up."
I say: Let them sleep.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
America Gets Buyer's Remorse
Ben Shapiro
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
On Nov. 4, 2008, America bought into a grand vision. That vision promised a unified America, brought together by racial content, defined by renewed optimism and hewn together by pragmatic policymaking.
On Jan. 19, 2010, America started looking for the receipt. Turns out that the grand vision was a lemon, and we want a refund.
Democrats considered Ted Kennedy's old seat their seat by right. Republican Scott Brown rightfully declared it the "people's seat." The people have spoken, and to paraphrase President Obama, make no mistake: the election of Brown in Massachusetts was a complete and utter rejection of the Obama mystique.
Was Martha Coakley an awful candidate? Absolutely. Was Scott Brown a great candidate? To be sure. But if the 2008 election was about rejection of disunity under George W. Bush, the 2010 election of Scott Brown was about rejection of false unity under Obama.
Brown's election represented a sudden recognition of reality for the first time in well over a year: Massachusetts voters realized that our president is not who he said he was. Even traditionally liberal-leaning voters in Massachusetts saw through Obama. They saw that he is a race-baiter, not a racial unifier; that he is a socialist bent on total overhaul of the American way of life, not a simple administrative pragmatist; that he is a egotist and a neophyte, and a man who generally dislikes America's founding principles and prominent place in the world. And Massachusetts voters rejected the real Obama wholesale.
Let's start with the grand vision of racial unity. On Nov. 6, 2008, I wrote that Obama's main appeal was in his racial identity; as a black man who did not attack white folks on a regular basis, he was perceived by most Americans as a moderate who could offer racial reunification simply by his election. That appeal turned out to be a chimera -- Obama is as racially radical as Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. The revelation of that fact started in Massachusetts when Obama stated that the racist police in Cambridge, Mass., were victimizing black citizens. As Obama put it, "The Cambridge police acted stupidly … there's a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by police disproportionately." So much for bringing us together to move beyond race.
Then there was the grand vision of pragmatism. Obama promised us better government. Instead, he has given us worse government and bigger government, a combination he embraces in order to pursue his redistributionist ends. The most egregious example of this ideological rigidity is his Orwellian "health care reform," which is truly a nationalizing scheme disguised as a way to enhance the free market. In some parts of the country, such newspeak works. In Massachusetts, it doesn't -- they've heard it before. Massachusetts' "universal" health care system is in shambles, with skyrocketing costs forcing health care rationing. Obama has said he wants to bring the Massachusetts system to the rest of the nation. This is hardcore Marxism on health care -- and Massachusetts voters already know the cost of such ideological commitment.
Finally, there was the grand vision of a "new American image" around the world. Even Massachusetts voters recognize how Obama's global kowtowing has undermined our national security. In fact, Coakley's campaign strategists released a memo to the media on the eve of her defeat. The memo stated, "Coakley's lead dropped significantly … after the Christmas Eve 'bombing' incident." That incident would only hurt Coakley if Americans considered her party leader -- Obama -- a wimp. Clearly, they did. Coakley's campaign staff also blamed hard-left Democrat primary voters for forcing Coakley to the left on Afghanistan, "which hurt her in the general." Apparently, even voters from Massachusetts don't appreciate dilly-dallying or surrender in Afghanistan, even to win a Nobel Peace Prize.
The evidence is in: Americans know Obama never meant to realize their grand vision, even if he preached it. Since Obama's election, there have been three statewide elections, two of them in deep blue states. Republicans have won all of them by stunning margins. Obama's response to the latest Massachusetts debacle is to double down on his own extremism, demonstrating his ardent belief that the opinions of the American people matter less than the dictates of his governing philosophy, his own grand vision. Republicans can only hope that Obama and his allies foolishly continue to pursue that grand vision at the expense of America's shattered hopes and dreams.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
On Nov. 4, 2008, America bought into a grand vision. That vision promised a unified America, brought together by racial content, defined by renewed optimism and hewn together by pragmatic policymaking.
On Jan. 19, 2010, America started looking for the receipt. Turns out that the grand vision was a lemon, and we want a refund.
Democrats considered Ted Kennedy's old seat their seat by right. Republican Scott Brown rightfully declared it the "people's seat." The people have spoken, and to paraphrase President Obama, make no mistake: the election of Brown in Massachusetts was a complete and utter rejection of the Obama mystique.
Was Martha Coakley an awful candidate? Absolutely. Was Scott Brown a great candidate? To be sure. But if the 2008 election was about rejection of disunity under George W. Bush, the 2010 election of Scott Brown was about rejection of false unity under Obama.
Brown's election represented a sudden recognition of reality for the first time in well over a year: Massachusetts voters realized that our president is not who he said he was. Even traditionally liberal-leaning voters in Massachusetts saw through Obama. They saw that he is a race-baiter, not a racial unifier; that he is a socialist bent on total overhaul of the American way of life, not a simple administrative pragmatist; that he is a egotist and a neophyte, and a man who generally dislikes America's founding principles and prominent place in the world. And Massachusetts voters rejected the real Obama wholesale.
Let's start with the grand vision of racial unity. On Nov. 6, 2008, I wrote that Obama's main appeal was in his racial identity; as a black man who did not attack white folks on a regular basis, he was perceived by most Americans as a moderate who could offer racial reunification simply by his election. That appeal turned out to be a chimera -- Obama is as racially radical as Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. The revelation of that fact started in Massachusetts when Obama stated that the racist police in Cambridge, Mass., were victimizing black citizens. As Obama put it, "The Cambridge police acted stupidly … there's a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by police disproportionately." So much for bringing us together to move beyond race.
Then there was the grand vision of pragmatism. Obama promised us better government. Instead, he has given us worse government and bigger government, a combination he embraces in order to pursue his redistributionist ends. The most egregious example of this ideological rigidity is his Orwellian "health care reform," which is truly a nationalizing scheme disguised as a way to enhance the free market. In some parts of the country, such newspeak works. In Massachusetts, it doesn't -- they've heard it before. Massachusetts' "universal" health care system is in shambles, with skyrocketing costs forcing health care rationing. Obama has said he wants to bring the Massachusetts system to the rest of the nation. This is hardcore Marxism on health care -- and Massachusetts voters already know the cost of such ideological commitment.
Finally, there was the grand vision of a "new American image" around the world. Even Massachusetts voters recognize how Obama's global kowtowing has undermined our national security. In fact, Coakley's campaign strategists released a memo to the media on the eve of her defeat. The memo stated, "Coakley's lead dropped significantly … after the Christmas Eve 'bombing' incident." That incident would only hurt Coakley if Americans considered her party leader -- Obama -- a wimp. Clearly, they did. Coakley's campaign staff also blamed hard-left Democrat primary voters for forcing Coakley to the left on Afghanistan, "which hurt her in the general." Apparently, even voters from Massachusetts don't appreciate dilly-dallying or surrender in Afghanistan, even to win a Nobel Peace Prize.
The evidence is in: Americans know Obama never meant to realize their grand vision, even if he preached it. Since Obama's election, there have been three statewide elections, two of them in deep blue states. Republicans have won all of them by stunning margins. Obama's response to the latest Massachusetts debacle is to double down on his own extremism, demonstrating his ardent belief that the opinions of the American people matter less than the dictates of his governing philosophy, his own grand vision. Republicans can only hope that Obama and his allies foolishly continue to pursue that grand vision at the expense of America's shattered hopes and dreams.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Martha Coakley, Witch Hunter Attorney General
Ashley Herzog
Monday, January 18, 2010
Martha Coakley is a crank.
If this were the year 1692 in Massachusetts, the Democrat Senate candidate would fit in perfectly with Puritan hysterics accusing innocent women of witchcraft. After all, she built her career by putting innocent people in jail--based on charges about as credible as those levied in the Salem witch trials. Not nearly enough has been said about Coakley's unique mix of fanaticism and incompetence.
In 1990, a Massachusetts woman named Shirley Ann Souza had a dream that her parents and brother raped her. She was in therapy for "repressed memories," the since-debunked theory that people can forget incidents of sexual abuse. She called her sister-in-law and announced that her parents were child molestors. Both women hauled their daughters to professional cranks (oops, I mean "child therapists") who coerced the girls into making ludicrous accusations.
"During her testimony, seven-year-old Cindy revealed that her grandparents routinely locked her and her first cousin Nancy in a basement cage," scholar Mark Pendergrast reported in 1996. "Six-year-old Nancy then told Judge Dolan how her grandparents had stuck their entire hands and heads into her vagina, where they would wiggle them around. They also abused her, she said, with a huge multicolored machine, as big as a room, which was kept in the cellar."
There was no physical evidence that either girl had been abused. Although they claimed to have been raped by hands, machines and other large objects, their hymens were intact. Needless to say, the cage and enormous molesting machine were never found. But no matter: the Souzas were convicted and sentenced to 9- to 15-year prison terms.
The prosecuting attorney? Martha Coakley.
After ruining the Souzas' lives, Coakley went on a personal crusade against Gerald Amirault, a former daycare worker jailed 18 years for child abuse. Amirault was convicted on the testimony of toddlers who claimed, after years of browbeating by child psychologists, that they'd been raped with swords, molested by clowns and robots, and tied naked to trees. As in the Souza case, there was no physical evidence and no witnesses, even though the alleged abuse took place in a crowded school.
While most Massachusetts voters know about Coakley's role in the case, few know the extent to which the children's testimony had been discredited by the time she went on her crusade. In the 90s, Cornell professor Stephen Ceci published numerous studies demonstrating the suggestibility of small children. In one study, he and his partner found that when they asked preschool kids suggestive questions--such as "can you show me how the doctor touch your private parts?"--more than half falsely claimed they had been molested.
In 2001, a parole board voted to release the obviously innocent Gerald Amirault. Instead of admitting the prosecution had been horribly wrong, Coakley said she was "disappointed" and hoped "the voices of the victims would be heard." (There were no "victims.")
Liberals love to sneer at superstitious and fanatical Christians. Republican governor Bobby Jindal has been mocked by the likes of "The Huffington Post" for allegedly performing excorcisms. Yet liberals have total confidence in a woman who prosecuted people based on dreams, bought into crank theories like "repressed memories," and believed children's stories of being molested with swords and giant machines. How, exactly, is she more rational than someone who believes in exorcism?
Nevermind her position on health care. An inept witch hunter like Martha Coakley shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the Senate.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Martha Coakley is a crank.
If this were the year 1692 in Massachusetts, the Democrat Senate candidate would fit in perfectly with Puritan hysterics accusing innocent women of witchcraft. After all, she built her career by putting innocent people in jail--based on charges about as credible as those levied in the Salem witch trials. Not nearly enough has been said about Coakley's unique mix of fanaticism and incompetence.
In 1990, a Massachusetts woman named Shirley Ann Souza had a dream that her parents and brother raped her. She was in therapy for "repressed memories," the since-debunked theory that people can forget incidents of sexual abuse. She called her sister-in-law and announced that her parents were child molestors. Both women hauled their daughters to professional cranks (oops, I mean "child therapists") who coerced the girls into making ludicrous accusations.
"During her testimony, seven-year-old Cindy revealed that her grandparents routinely locked her and her first cousin Nancy in a basement cage," scholar Mark Pendergrast reported in 1996. "Six-year-old Nancy then told Judge Dolan how her grandparents had stuck their entire hands and heads into her vagina, where they would wiggle them around. They also abused her, she said, with a huge multicolored machine, as big as a room, which was kept in the cellar."
There was no physical evidence that either girl had been abused. Although they claimed to have been raped by hands, machines and other large objects, their hymens were intact. Needless to say, the cage and enormous molesting machine were never found. But no matter: the Souzas were convicted and sentenced to 9- to 15-year prison terms.
The prosecuting attorney? Martha Coakley.
After ruining the Souzas' lives, Coakley went on a personal crusade against Gerald Amirault, a former daycare worker jailed 18 years for child abuse. Amirault was convicted on the testimony of toddlers who claimed, after years of browbeating by child psychologists, that they'd been raped with swords, molested by clowns and robots, and tied naked to trees. As in the Souza case, there was no physical evidence and no witnesses, even though the alleged abuse took place in a crowded school.
While most Massachusetts voters know about Coakley's role in the case, few know the extent to which the children's testimony had been discredited by the time she went on her crusade. In the 90s, Cornell professor Stephen Ceci published numerous studies demonstrating the suggestibility of small children. In one study, he and his partner found that when they asked preschool kids suggestive questions--such as "can you show me how the doctor touch your private parts?"--more than half falsely claimed they had been molested.
In 2001, a parole board voted to release the obviously innocent Gerald Amirault. Instead of admitting the prosecution had been horribly wrong, Coakley said she was "disappointed" and hoped "the voices of the victims would be heard." (There were no "victims.")
Liberals love to sneer at superstitious and fanatical Christians. Republican governor Bobby Jindal has been mocked by the likes of "The Huffington Post" for allegedly performing excorcisms. Yet liberals have total confidence in a woman who prosecuted people based on dreams, bought into crank theories like "repressed memories," and believed children's stories of being molested with swords and giant machines. How, exactly, is she more rational than someone who believes in exorcism?
Nevermind her position on health care. An inept witch hunter like Martha Coakley shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the Senate.
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