Democrats in Glass Houses Throwing Stones at George Santos

The only way to stop Democrats from throwing stones is to start tossing some back.

AP/Patrick Semansky
Representative George Santos and other Republicans gather in the House Chamber on February 7, 2023. AP/Patrick Semansky

Democrats are pushing a resolution to boot a New York Republican congressman, George Santos, from the House, a stunt that’s setting up a classic no-win scenario for the GOP: surrender and lose a seat in their narrow majority, or tie themselves closer to Mr. Santos’s deceptions. Fighting back would be the best option if Republicans have the gumption.

The resolution has little chance of a floor vote, but the measure frames Democrats as champions of truth and of the House itself. A fellow congressman of New York, Daniel Goldman, one of the Democrats who proposed the resolution, says it’s a “shame that it has come to this,” as if his party isn’t relishing every minute.

Republican frustration boiled over at the State of the Union address, when a senator of Utah, Willard “Mitt” Romney — the 2016 GOP presidential nominee — shoved his way up to Mr. Santos as he waited to greet President Biden. “It’s embarrassing,” Mr. Romney said. “You ought not be here.”

Mr. Santos replied that Mr. Romney ought to “tell that to the 142,000 who voted for me,” in a reference to the vote count in New York’s 3rd district. That’s when Mr. Romney cast aside the decorum that we’re told rules the upper chamber of Congress. “You’re an a–hole,” he snarled twice, to which Mr. Santos replied, “You’re a much bigger a–hole.”

Could that have referred to Mr. Romney labeling himself “a severe conservative” to win Republicans support in 2012, only to betray the party faithful with such regularity that a representative in Utah’s House introduced legislation that, though it didn’t pass and is constitutionally doubtful, would have allowed for his recall.

As for truth, in the congressional campaign that elevated Mr. Santos to Congress, who had the quarter on truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Was it his Democratic opponent, Robert Zimmerman, who ran on the disproven socialist claims that we can tax, spend, and regulate our way to prosperity?

Washington is filled with men and women who exaggerate, lie, and deceive to win elections, yet only Mr. Santos is to be expelled? “Let he who is without sin,” Jesus says in the Gospel of John, “cast the first stone,” a favorite Democratic quote any time one of their own is caught behaving badly.

When Mr. Santos staked his position to greet Mr. Biden, it was like calling to like. The president’s 1988 White House campaign imploded after he lied about his life story — plagiarizing details from a British MP, Neil Kinnock — and he lies often about his academic and work history, doing so several times in a single clip from 1988 alone.

Mr. Zimmerman rallied with the 2000 Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Gore, who even the left-wing Pew Research Center declared “a liar” for Zeliging himself into historical events, just as Mr. Biden keeps telling false stories about such things as an Amtrak conductor and his dead uncle rejecting a Purple Heart.

Those who seek Mr. Santos’s removal claim to be defenders of the truth, yet none of them ever saw fit to confront Mr. Biden, Mr. Gore, President Clinton — impeached and disbarred for lying under oath — or Democrats like Secretary Clinton, labeled “a congenital liar” by William Safire for false claims such as having dodged sniper fire in Bosnia.

The self-styled truth-tellers ignored the Democrat of Connecticut, Senator Blumenthal, who served in the Marine Reserves stateside and sought five deferments but invented a combat record in Vietnam, as well as the senator of Nevada, Harry Reid, who alleged during the 2012 race that Mr. Romney hadn’t paid taxes in 10 years.

When asked if he regretted it, Mr. Reid sneered, “He didn’t win, did he?” If the end justifies the means for presidents, vice presidents, senators, and presidential candidates, why a higher standard for a pathetic freshman congressman? Republicans can ask questions like these or curl into the fetal position, hoping Democrats tire of raining blows upon them.

All Republicans are under attack because of Mr. Santos. If he’s proven to have broken the law, they can cut the embarrassment loose. Until then, he has been elected to a chamber filled with people who live in glass houses. The only way to stop Democrats from throwing stones is to start tossing some back.


The New York Sun

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