Poor Erin Bilbray-Kohn just can’t catch a break.
The titular head of her party, President Barack Obama, has announced his proposal for dealing with the ISIS head-chopper Muslims running amok all over Iraq and Syria. It’s fair to assume Bilbray-Kohn, the Democrat running for Nevada’s 3rd congressional district currently represented by Republican Rep. Joe Heck, R-Nev., supports her fellow Democrat and commander-in-chief.
On Sept. 17, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on Obama’s military plan. Bilbray-Kohn’s opponent — who happens to also be an Army doctor who has served two tours of duty in Iraq and recently was promoted to the rank of brigadier general — voted against it.
“The one thing I will not support is arming the so-called moderate opposition force, the Free Syrian army,” Heck said, characterizing it as “a rag tag collection of 100 disparate groups” that “has no cogent leadership, no organization, no command and control.”
Heck added “without U.S. military advisers embedded with the forces that we train and send back into Syria we will have no visibility on their effectiveness, their defections and whether or not our weapons are falling into the hands of our enemies.”
Ah-hah! A cutting campaign issue for Bilbray-Kohn which she can use to attack Heck for not supporting the president in wartime. Manna from heaven.
Except…
Except Nevada Democrat Rep. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, voted with Heck, not with Obama.
So now Bilbray-Kohn can’t criticize Brigadier General Heck on his vote without, by extension, also criticizing her political idol, ally and fellow Democrat in the district next door who also voted against the president.
Curse you Dina Titus!
Then again, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Bilbray-Kohn also thinks the president’s plan is ill-conceived and destined to failure. But in that case, where’s her statement declaring Heck and Titus are right and another fellow Nevada Democrat representing another adjoining congressional district, Rep. Steven Horsford — who voted in support of the president — is wrong?
Talk about darned if you do and darned if you don’t!
This situation is reminiscent of how Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, Bilbray-Kohn’s patron, snatched another issue off her campaign’s plate recently.
You see, some immigration amnesty activists staged a bullhorn-wielding protest in Rep. Heck’s district office a few weeks ago. The agitators told police what they were up to in advance and hoped to get some political mileage out of being arrested.
Indeed, Bilbray-Kohn’s supporters have been using that staged political stunt to criticize Heck for supposedly being anti-Hispanic and weak on immigration reform.
Alas, a couple weeks ago some other immigration amnesty activists were arrested outside Sen. Reid’s office in Washington. So now Bilbray-Kohn can’t criticize Heck for having immigration activists arrested without, by association, criticizing Reid for the same thing.
Curse you Harry Reid!
Chuck Muth is president of Citizen Outreach, a conservative grassroots advocacy organization. He can be reached at www.MuthsTruths.com.
