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Carol Platt Liebau - Columnist

Carol Platt Liebau is editorial director and a senior member of tOR and CRO editorial boards. She is an attorney, political analyst and commentator based in San Marino, CA, and has appeared on the Fox News Channel, MSNBC, CNN, Orange County News Channel, Cox Cable and a variety of radio programs throughout the United States. A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, Carol Platt Liebau also served as the first female managing editor of the Harvard Law Review. Her web log can be found at CarolLiebau.blogspot.com [go to Liebau index]

California’s Biggest Embarassment
Another Six Long Years with Barbara Boxer...
[Carol Platt Liebau] 1/17/05

Barbara Boxer needs to give it a rest – heck, she needs to give us a rest. We’ve got six more years to go with Boxer in the Senate, and perhaps the worst part is that she seems intent on making us, and everyone else, remember it.

Week before last, Boxer put on her tin-foil hat and objected to the certification of President Bush’s victory in Ohio, thereby forcing a debate of the issue. And although some of her Democratic Senate colleagues paid lip service to the needless (and meaningless) disruption, when it came time actually to vote on whether to sustain Boxer’s objection, she was abandoned on the far-left bank of the political river: The final vote was 74-1 against her.

In a statement attempting to explain her objection to the certification, Boxer noted, “Every citizen of this country who is registered to vote should be guaranteed that their vote matters.” Surely, then, she’d have some serious reservations about representing a state where it is illegal for poll workers to ask for proof of identity from those at the polls. But so far, Boxer’s silence on this topic has been, well, deafening.

But perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. After all, intellectual consistency (or consistency of any other kind) hasn’t exactly been Boxer’s strong suit. She has, of course, always claimed to be a friend to women and minorities – in fact, in 2000, she called a press conference to protest the treatment of women and minorities for the federal judiciary, calling it a “nightmare.” In more recent years, however, she perpetuated the “nightmare,” supporting the filibuster of two nominees Carolyn Kuhl (a female) and Janice Rogers Brown (a black female) of California.

Then, last week, in the wake of her lonesome objection to the Ohio results, Boxer decided to kick up a little dust surrounding Condoleezza Rice’s nomination to be Secretary of State. Let’s understand this: By Boxer’s own race- and gender-conscious criteria, Rice, as a black woman, should be a superstar. More importantly, by a race-blind standard, she is a superstar – PhD., foreign policy wunderkind, Stanford provost and professor, National Security Advisor.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, for whom reality trumps partisanship, plans to introduce Dr. Rice to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week – where committee member Barbara Boxer is waiting to tell her that "I personally believe that your loyalty to the mission you were given overwhelmed your respect for the truth," according to prepared remarks released Friday. So, in effect, the woman who describes herself as “mainstream”– despite her 95% rating from far left Americans for Democratic Action – is actually going to suggest that Condoleezza Rice is a liar!

Boxer hasn’t yet announced how she plans to vote on Rice’s nomination – perhaps she’s waiting to see where the political winds will shift. But once again, her very embarrassing presence in the U.S. Senate is another reminder of why elections matter – and why her 2004 re-election should be the last time that Barbara Boxer has any excuse to claim a mandate from the people of California. tOR

Columnist Carol Platt Liebau is a political analyst, commentator and CaliforniaRepublic.org editorial director based in San Marino, CA. Ms. Liebau also served as the first female managing editor of the Harvard Law Review. Her web log can be found at CarolLiebau.blogspot.com

copyright 2005

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