Lisa Murkowski isn’t gunning down caribou on national TV like that other famous Alaskan, but the Republican lawmaker is going rogue in the Senate just weeks after staging the most stunning back-from-the-dead political win of the 2010 cycle.
Murkowski is already showing a fierce independent streak, becoming the only Republican to cast votes on all four items on President Barack Obama’s wish list: a repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” a tax-cut compromise, the START deal and cloture for the DREAM Act.
The lame-duck votes capped a strange political odyssey for the Alaska Republican — one that started Aug. 31 when she conceded the GOP primary to tea-party-backed Joe Miller, continued when she resigned her leadership job in September and ended when she waged Alaska’s first successful statewide write-in bid to retain her seat.
Now, she heads back to the Senate with a fresh six-year term without owing much to either her home state party establishment or her Washington leadership.
How important was Murkowski's backing of Obama's initiatives in the lame duck session? Her 4 for 4 voting record puts her ahead of some 18 Democratic senators who broke ranks with the President at least once on those four issues. She was the only returning Republican senator to vote for the DREAM Act. The rest of the Republicans who did are all retiring or were defeated in primaries.
So yeah, Lisa Murkowski is the new Lady from Maine.
And none of this would have been possible without a generous contribution by one Sarah Palin, who backed Joe Miller's primary efforts to sink Murkowski. How's that hopey changey thing workin' out for ya, sweetheart?
Perhaps Obama should send her some caribou sausage and a thank you note too.
Meanwhile, Palin's ignoring all the "I helped Obama's legacy" stuff and wants to have her ghost writer slap Iran some more to make herself feel better.
But we also need to encourage a positive vision for Iran. Iran is not condemned to live under the totalitarian inheritance of the Ayatollah Khomeini forever. There is an alternative — an Iran where human rights are respected, where women are not subjugated, where terrorist groups are not supported and neighbors are not threatened. A peaceful, democratic Iran should be everyone's goal. There are many hopeful signs inside Iran that reveal the Iranian people's desire for this peaceful, democratic future. We must encourage their voices...
By bombing the crap out of them! Just like Iraq, where the grateful populace will greet their liberators with flowers and not an 8-year civil war between Sunni and Shiite.
Moosetastic.
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