During his acceptance speech last month, after he had won the US Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama, Republican Mark Kirk described himself as a "fiscal conservative, a social moderate and a national security hawk."
On Thursday, while Sen. John McCain was speaking on the senate floor, thanking both his senate colleagues and the American people for their assistance in facilitating the demise of the Omnibus pork bill, Mr. Kirk interjected himself into McCain's remarks and asked him, "did we just win?”
McCain responded to the affirmative.
Kirk continued: "So for economic conservatives, a 1,924 page bill just died?"
McCain, once again, answered to the affirmative.
Kirk continued on with his game and finally concluded:
“All of the GOP senators just signed a letter to the leadership this morning saying that we should not move forward with this as representatives of the new mandate. And it seems change has come to the Senate tonight with the death of this $1.1 trillion plan.”
In his aforementioned remarks, Mr. Kirk, the self-described 'fiscal conservative and social moderate' noted: "for ECONOMIC conservatives, a 1,924 page bill just died."
Kirk, was in essence, making the point that, although he had interjected himself into Sen. McCain's remarks in order to bask in the limelight and glean some positive PR for himself, he was still a moderate and that he was only a conservative when it pertains to economics.
On Saturday, Mr. Kirk proved the aforementioned point when he and several Republicans, including Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, broke with the GOP and voted in favor of repealing DADT. Shortly before the vote, President Obama's political arm, Organizing for America, dropped off a petition with 28,000 signatures [from the state of Illinois] at Kirk's Washington office, demanding that he vote in favor of repealing DADT. [OFA made a similar drop-off at Senator Scott Brown's door.] OFA also organized a massive phone campaign to Kirk's office. It goes without saying that OFA did not support Mr. Kirk's senatorial campaign, but nevertheless, Kirk, the self-described "social Democrat", granted Barack Obama's acolytes their Christmas wish.
However, as Sen. McCain noted on the senate floor on Saturday, repealing DADT is not merely a social and moral issue, it is also a national security issue that will likely have a huge detrimental effect on the US military. Hence, although Mr. Kirk, as mentioned earlier, depicts himself to be a "national security hawk", his vote on Saturday belies any such notion.
During his remarks Thursday on the senate floor, Kirk stated, with regards to omnibus bill's demise:
"All of the GOP senators just signed a letter to the leadership this morning saying that we should not move forward with this as representatives of the new mandate. And it seems change has come to the Senate tonight with the death of this $1.1 trillion plan."
Does Mr. Kirk really believe that the new mandate, which he was elected to represent, entails him to heed the directives of Organizing for America?
In his remarks, Kirk went on to say: "And it seems change has come to the Senate tonight with the death of this $1.1 trillion plan."
But sadly, Mr. Kirk is living proof that just the opposite is true - that [real] change has yet to arrive in the Senate.
On Saturday, when Senate Democrats came out to the Senate floor to celebrate their victory [the DADT repeal], Kirk was nowhere to be found.
Was he hiding in an undisclosed location, salivating over his recent PR stunt and on how he had managed to hog some of the limelight from Sen. McCain?
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