Dear Senator Coburn. . .

by: david bozeman | published: 04 21, 2010

Having invested somewhat in your reputation, I feel I am due this opportunity to address your recent attempts at reconciling with the left. I am referring, of course, to your remarks to a constituent concerned with going to jail for not buying health insurance and whether that is Constitutional. Political watchers, including this writer, were STUNNED when you replied that while it made for good TV news on Fox, that wasn't the intention of the reform law. And there was more. You informed this same group of voters, despite their groans, what a nice person Nancy Pelosi is (as if it matters) and condescendingly reminded them not to be biased by -- again (and what's going on here?) -- Fox News that someone is no good.

With all the backroom dealing and arm-twisting, one can reasonably doubt that anyone responsible for this monstrosity is nice, but that, not unlike your comments, is beside the point. The federal government has nearly nationalized health care in this country -- what does it mean and how can we repeal it? You have been a reliably vocal opponent of the Obama agenda, and your supporters fear losing you to the bland orthodoxy driving political discourse -- even Bill O'Reilly, in taking you to task, conceded that your comments about Speaker Pelosi may have some merit!

In January, I posted a reply to a hit piece against you, your fellow senator James Inhofe and the voters of Oklahoma. This editorial, in the Fayetteville (North Carolina) Observer, castigated you for "obstructionism" against health care reform by forcing the reading aloud of all the "legalese small-type language" (as if that's a bad thing). The piece even charged that you expect other senators to do their duties by their salaries, while you (a medical doctor) fly home every weekend to practice medicine in your hometown clinic.

How dare you, I wrote. We can't have our leaders back home treating the sick when they should be in Washington selling their votes like Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu. And yet here is another conservative worrying that our side is coming across as too mean. Give me a break!

In accepting the liberals' premise that conservatives are mean-spirited, you betray, for example, Sarah Palin, who is also very nice and who, when introduced to America by John McCain, paid tribute to Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton for helping clear the way for the first woman president or vice president. See what all that congeniality did for her, which begs the question: is any Fox News reporter more biased or condescending than Katie Couric? George W. Bush was so nice a president that he let his critics define his character and his policies, only responding to their bile too late for it to matter.

You told O'Reilly (and I'm paraphrasing) that conservatives can get more accomplished by being nice. While good manners are certainly preferable to bad ones, being nice is not something one can prove. Either you are or you aren't. People either accept you or they don't. It is not individual conservatives the dominant politico-media culture doesn't like as much as conservatism itself.

None of this is written to you disparagingly. You have suffered their hits for quite some time, prompting George Will to write in 2006 that you are "someone simply not interested in being liked." Similarly, I wrote that you (who once said that 'no' is a word Washington needs to hear more often) and Inhofe, who uphold the principles of limited government, are about as fashionable in Washington as white socks with a tuxedo.

Liberals, as we know, largely set the terms of political warfare in America, forging their agendas legislatively and judicially, through culture, entertainment and academia. While conservatives need not resort to gutter-level tactics (and, yes, some on our side frequently do), we must remain strong, focused and on offense. The old rustic town hall has given way to a Roman-style arena, a place not for the faint-hearted, to slay not our opponents but ideas that are bone-headed, bureaucratic and definitely not nice. Stay your course, Senator Coburn and keep the white socks.

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