Meet the new Senator from Wyoming

Chosen by the Democratic governor after the state GOP nominated three candidates, the new Republican Senator from Wyoming (replacing the late Sen. Craig Thomas—see here), is state Senator John Barrasso, M.D.

Senator-select John Barrasso

From the story by the Casper Star Tribune's Cheyenne reporter (that quaint institution that most local newspapers still have, a stringer in the state capital who—often—reports for several papers as the "capital bureau." In Montana, it's Mike Dennison. etc.) :

Name recognition could carry Barrasso
By JOAN BARRON
Star-Tribune capital bureau Friday, June 22, 2007

... He also voted to draft a bill to ban smoking in public places statewide.

He circulated petitions to exempt food from the state sales tax and successfully sponsored the 2006 amendment that incorporated the two-year tax break in the budget. The exemption was subsequently made permanent.

"I believe in limited government, lower taxes, less spending, traditional family values, local control and a strong national defense," Barrasso said in his application to the Republican State Central Committee to succeed the late U.S. Sen. Craig Thomas.

That was the quote picked up by the AP reporter, whose story fills the pages of every other newspaper in the country, from Forbes to the Flatbush Daily Flummox:

Conservative Wyo. Surgeon Newest Senator

By BOB MOEN, Associated Press Writer
Friday, June 22, 2007
(06-22) 10:18 PDT Cheyenne, Wyo. (AP) --

Republican John Barrasso, a surgeon and conservative Wyoming legislator, became the country's newest U.S. senator Friday, replacing the late Craig Thomas.

The temporary appointment, announced Friday by Wyoming's governor, will have no effect on the Senate's party breakdown, since Thomas was also a Republican. He died June 4 while being treated for leukemia.

Barrasso, 54, will serve in Thomas' place until the beginning of 2009. He said on his application that he also intends to then run in a November 2008 special election to serve out the remainder of Thomas' term through 2013.

Barrasso also left no doubt that he will be a conservative voice in Washington.

"I believe in limited government, lower taxes, less spending, traditional family values, local control and a strong national defense," the orthopedic surgeon and state senator from Casper wrote in his application.

He said he has "voted for prayer in schools, against gay marriage and have sponsored legislation to protect the sanctity of life."

But, as no man is one-dimensional, the possibly good Doctor is in an interesting position vis-à-vis abortion as medicine and abortion as political doctrine: (from the Casper Star-Trib story):

In 1994, he was one of the contributors to "No on Number One," a political action committee organized to oppose passage of a constitutional amendment that would have banned most abortions.

Voters overwhelmingly defeated the amendment.

When he ran for the U.S. Senate in 1996, he was quoted as saying he doesn't believe in telling doctors how to practice and he believes that abortion should be a decision between a pregnant woman and her doctor, according to newspaper accounts.

At the same time, he said he would vote to ban use of federal funds for abortions.

Since being elected to the Wyoming Senate, he's sponsored bills to increase the penalty for killing a pregnant woman.

The latter bill passed the Legislature last winter but was vetoed by the governor on grounds that it would open up a state debate on abortion rights and might be unconstitutional.

Freudenthal said the state already has laws to protect pregnant women.

Barrasso said his only motive in sponsoring the bill was in reaction to the murder of Califonian Laci Peterson and her eight-month-old unborn son, Connor.

And, he is another in a long line of "mediagenic" candidates (ibid.):

The decades spent by John Barrasso in helping us care for ourselves have paid off big in positive statewide name recognition.

A Casper orthopedic surgeon, Barrasso, 54, has been in the spotlight for years through television and radio appearances and a weekly newspaper column peppered with practical medical advice.

But he has a physician's view of medicine, and not a politician's.

During his nearly five years in the Wyoming Senate, he has actively worked on health care issues, including sponsorship of the "I'm sorry" law.

The so-called law enables physicians to talk freely with their patients once unforeseen complications arise without having that conversation used against them in a lawsuit.

So, we may well have that classical Greek conflict between the Oath of Hippocrates and that of Hypocrites.

Meantime, meet the new Senator from Wyoming, John Barrasso, M.D.

Time will tell what a man of quality he will or won't be.

Courage.

UPDATE: 8:42PM PDT

Right Wing Finds Dreaded Liberal Media Bias In Grilled Cheese Sandwich

I didn't mean to go on the Right Wing blogs today. Usually, the level of sheer hatred that is espoused towards anything I vaguely believe in makes David Duke look like a Welcome Wagon hostess. Several links during fact-checking have taken me to sites that I would prefer not to remember, let alone refer to.

But it is IMPORTANT to go and look, occasionally, just as it's important to listen to Right Wing Hate Radio once a month or so, to REMIND you of how much these people hate you, your children, your beliefs, and how dangerous they potentially are.

But one, in particular, seemed to scream loudest as the poster child of the Clueless Need To Hate that so characterizes the Right Wing blogosphere these days. That may sound harsh, but I assure you, it's entirely fair (just think "Ann Coulter"):

I am not going to quote the entire NewsBusters ("Exposing and Combating Liberal Media Bias" ) posting. I leave it to more nuanced minds to understand how nitpicking about a straight, factual article is an example EVIL, LEFTIST, LIBERAL MEDIA BIAS!!!!

Mostly because you've got to be more than a little crazy to analyze the sheer psychotic paranoia of this post, and I guess I'm not that nuts, after all.

Some 'blogger' named "Pam Meister" (whose profile states: "A recovering liberal since 9/11" and whose website has this slug: "Conservative discussion and viewpoints from Deep Inside New England's liberal wasteland") has posted that the AP story (which I referred to earlier in the day) is biased ... because THE WRITING ISN'T AS CLEAR AS SHE PREFERS!

This is the equivalent of using spelling flames to prove liberal bias.:

AP Touts New Wyoming Senator's Conservatism; Leaves Out Legalities

by Pam Meister

... Wyoming state law dictates that a replacement senator must come from the same party as the senator being replaced. The AP story seems quite vague about this:

State Republican Party officials had given Gov. Dave Freudenthal a slate of three nominees from which he had to choose the temporary replacement for Thomas. Freudenthal, a Democrat, chose Barrasso over Cheyenne attorney Tom Sansonetti and former state Treasurer Cynthia Lummis.

The reader might get the idea that Gov. Freudenthal was somehow strong-armed into picking another Republican to fill the seat, when in fact, he was following the law.

And check out this (not atypical) comment:

Why include facts that don't fit the MSM agenda? ; )

WHAT agenda? That the AP writer wasn't bland ENOUGH? Or that he didn't heap praise and adulation on the new senator from Wyoming because he was a RepubliKKKan and, therefore, must have the ground ahead of him strewn with rose petals? Nutso.

And WHO is NewsBusters?

Gladjaasked:

The NewsBusters Blog is a project of the Media Research Center.

NewsBusters.org has been led since 1987 by Brent H. Baker, "the MRC's Steven P.J. Wood Senior Fellow and Vice President for Research and Publications. The division produces daily, weekly and special reports that document and counter liberal bias from television network news shows and major print publications. Tim Graham serves as Director of Media Analysis and Rich Noyes is the Director of Research."

And who is the Media Research Center?

Media Research Center Inc. is a conservative media watchdog group run by president and founder Brent Bozell. The Center has a $6 million annual budget and 60 staff members and is funded by larger right-wing foundations (see below*).

[* Some of their related operations:

* Business & Media Institute
* CNSNews.com
* NewsBusters
* Parents Television Council
* TimesWatch

Funding

* The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Inc.
* Sarah Scaife Foundation
* Castle Rock Foundation
* John M. Olin Foundation, Inc.
* The Carthage Foundation
* JM Foundation[4]

Board members include:

• Bruce Bartlett, Senior Fellow, National Center for Policy Analysis
• John Berthoud, President, National Taxpayers Union
• Steve Moore, Founder, The Club for Growth
• John Drescher, Senior Fellow, The Discovery Institute
• Dr. Walter E. Williams, Distinguished Professor of Economics George Mason University
• Daniel J. Mitchell, McKenna Senior Fellow in Political Economy Heritage Foundation

And who is Brent Bozell?

PERSON PROFILE
Bozell, L. Brent III

13 institutional roles for $2,191,952

Brent Bozell, a zealot of impeccable right-wing pedigree, is the nephew of columnist William F. Buckley and the son of L. Brent Bozell, Jr., who assisted Barry Goldwater with the writing of Conscience of a Conservative.

A close associate of the late Terry Dolan, the closeted gay founder of the National Conservative Political Action Committee, Bozell served for several years as the Dolan organization's finance chairman and president. In 1991, he helped orchestrate a smear campaign directed at the opposition to Clarence Thomas's appointment to the Supreme Court; in 1992, he was the chief fund-raiser behind Pat Buchanan's unsuccessful bid for the Republican Presidential nomination.

The Media Research Center provides Bozell with a platform from which to bash the arts and popular culture. Recently (1996) Bozell has been part of the drive to eradicate PBS.

The garish portrayal of our culture by Bozell, such as the claim that the film version of Last Temptation of Christ showed Jesus "engaging in sex acts and committing adultery," are sometimes entertaining, but the accretion of drivel can be wearing.... (more)

Ms. Meister should be paddled on her keister for Rorschaching so indiscriminately.

At this level of hallucinatory psychosis, ANYthing proves the psychotic blogger's point. I don't know of anything other than gunpowder and steel that can bridge such a communications chasm —as we learned in 1860 and the four years following.

Courage.