The Democrats’ Slanderous Angle

(Mark Noonan) – Oh, to be an Independent now that campaign season is here! While being a Republican does have its advantages, there is one draw back: Democrats don’t send their campaign fliers to your house. Especially when their whole program revolves not around garnering support for a Democrat but, instead, the demonization of the Republican.

Fortunately, I am a man of wide friendships and thus a friend of mine, registered as an Independent, kindly provided me with the slew of fliers she has received regarding Sharron Angle, Republican candidate for Senate against Harry Reid. They make for interesting reading. Did you know that Sharron Angle wanted to…

…provide saunas and massages for prison inmates?

…permit insurance companies to deny breast and colon cancer tests?

…give violent domestic offenders a safe haven in Nevada?

What a horrible person! Reading all that, I wouldn’t be surprised if Angle was in favor of clubbing baby seals to death! I mean, come on – what sort of creep would want to give a safe haven to people who beat up their wives?

A pretty bad one, to be sure – but not, as it turns out, Sharron Angle.

A look at the facts in these cases reveals that the “sauna and massage” issue was an attempt by Sharron Angle to find innovative means to deal with hard core drug addicts in prison. The concept of the program is to de-toxify the addicts so that they will no longer be addicted to drugs. A great many doubts have been cast about the worth of such a method – and the Scientology issue has been brought up simply because Scientology has a bad reputation in some quarters and Democrats are hoping that a bit of quilt-by-association will harm Angle. As for me, having dealt with people addicted to drugs, I’m pretty much willing to try anything to get them off the stuff – any decent person should always be on the look out for means of helping the less fortunate, right?

Angle dropped the idea back in 2003 because the Democrats in the legislature simply weren’t interested in dealing with the problem. Perhaps the Democrats couldn’t figure out how to profit from it politically – but it is to Angle’s credit that she has at least sought means of helping people.

The references used by the Democrats for Angle’s alleged opposition to providing breast and colon cancer tests are Assembly Bill 162 from 1999 and Senate Bill 183 from 2003. The Assembly bill was designed to ensure coverage for osteoporosis – Angle voted against it, but I can’t figure out why the Democrats say this was a move against breast cancer coverage – the word “breast” isn’t mentioned in the legislation. Perhaps its just that breast cancer is a more well-known disease while osteoporosis just doesn’t lend itself to hard-hitting (and slanderous) talking points.

The Senate bill was an attempt to micro-manage health insurance policies – jamming a one-size-fits-all bit of coverage without relation to a individual consumer’s risk of colon cancer. Angle has long been a person opposed to such government actions.

But what of providing a safe haven to wife beaters? Surely, Angle has gone completely ’round the bend here and so we’d better re-elect Harry Reid, lest 10,000 wife-beaters arrive tomorrow and, I guess, start beating their wives with impunity. Well, it wasn’t quite like that.

The hook the Democrats use to hang this on Angle is Assembly Bill 581 from 2001. That bill changed Nevada law from having any judge in Nevada accept a protective order from other States to having any police officer out there accept a protective order. Which action is pointless – the merest exercise in pretending to be stern on law breakers without actually doing anything about it.

Are we to believe that there is a stream of abused women fleeing to Nevada, hot pursued by their abusive husbands and desperately hoping to find a cop right over the border who will see the protective order and, at last, protect the endangered woman? Some how, I like to think that any police officer, anywhere, who finds a person being abused will do his job to protect the innocent, even if that person doesn’t have a properly registered court order.

One might think, what harm in just passing a law? Well, unless the law actually does something worthwhile, it shouldn’t be done – making law is a tremendous responsibility, and should not be used as a kabuki theater to allow grafting politicians to cook up campaign talking points. Angle understands her job as a legislator is to work for the betterment of Nevada, not the future prospects of Sharron Angle.

Thus the Nevada Democrats in 2010. They’ve got a horrifically unpopular Senator on their hands – so unpopular that his own son won’t use his last name in campaign ads. They’ve got a Nevada economy in the dumpster and a surge of populist anger against the Powers That Be. In Sharron Angle, they’ve got a veritable Tribune of the people who is ready and willing to go to Washington and speak truth to power. All of this has combined to make Democrats desperate – and out of this desperation has come this concerted effort to lie about Sharron Angle.

Lies move fast. Truth is a lot slower. This is because a lie is a tiny, slippery thing while truth carries a heavy load. That is ok – the Creator of our world set it up that way, and we’re required to be patient. The Democrats have broadcast their lies over the land, and the truth is just now starting to poke its head around the political corner. But the truth will out – and the lies of our Democrats will prove the doom of Harry Reid.