Senator Salazar's Duplicity

In an article published April 23 Denver Rocky Mountain News reporter M.E. Sprengelmeyer suggests that objections to Senator Ken Salazar's duplicitous stand on judicial nominees came from evangelicals. He reports; "The senator ignited a firestorm at a news conference Wednesday, when he blasted ads from the political arm of Focus on the Family pressuring him to change U.S. Senate filibuster rules and allow up-or-down votes for seven stalled judicial nominations."

But the word on the street is that criticism of Salazar has more to do with his waffle on judicial nominees than his attack on Focus on the Family.

One person, I spoke to, called Salazar's office because he doesn't like politicians that break their campaign promises. To him his call had nothing to do with the religion.

Reporter Sperengelmeyer views the issue differently as his lead states, "The phones rang a couple times each minute. E-mails came fast and furious. And by the close of business Friday, Senator Ken Salazar's staff had heard from thousands of folks either angered or heartened by his verbal attack on the state's biggest evangelical Christian group".

"Salazar won back some old friends and made some new political enemies this week, after he accused Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family of using "un-Christian" political tactics to clear the way for controversial judicial nominees".

"Since Wednesday's news conference, Salazar's Denver office tallied 416 phone calls supporting Salazar's stand and 2,218 calls opposing him. Many of those were repeat calls from people reading the same prepared scripts, spokesman Cody Wertz said".

Seems to me with over 5 to 1 calls against Salazar's waffle, he made more political enemies than he won back old friends. And what does the reporter's little aside that people were reading from the same prepared script have to do with the issue other than to discredit the opposition.

M.E. further reports, "A Virginia group called The Judicial Confirmation Network created a Web site,www.salazarwaffles.com/, highlighting Salazar's pre-election statement saying he supported giving qualified judicial nominees an up-or-down vote."If we can't trust Ken Salazar to stick to his word on the most important issue of the day," it said, "how can we trust his word on any other issue important to the people of Colorado."

Amen.