Lugar still waving red flag at Tea Party

By Ralph Alter

The bombast and bluster emanating from the office of Senator Dick Lugar of Indiana suggest that he knows he's going to have a fight on his hands to retain his seat. Lugar, current king of the RINOs in the upper chamber, is clearly unwilling to give up the perks of office, particularly the accolades slathered upon him by the beltway media. Like John McCain, Lugar simply doesn't comprehend the fact that he is lavishly praised by the mainstream press precisely to the degree he is willing to turn his back on the traditional American values of his constituents.

Lugar's response to the Tea Partiers who are ready to put a real conservative in the seat Senator Dick has occupied for far too long, is as condescending as most of his other responses to those who would question what he clearly considers to be his own superior intellect and entitlement to continue in office. In an interview with Ft. Wayne radio station, WANE, Lugar says that the Tea Party needs to "Get real."

And not just particularly about their criticism of his leading role in the promotion of the START treaty with Russia. The overall tenor and tone of Lugar's response to his legitimate conservative challengers is that it is the Tea Party, not Richard Lugar, that is out of touch:

If you want to get into START, let's talk about it realistically as Americans, not as some Republican renegades. (I'm) trying to take (the) warheads of Russia (out of circulation) so they won't hit Indiana.

I would beg the Senator's pardon. I am not a military expert, nor particularly well-schooled in the niceties of strategic armament, but if the Russians have their nukes pointed at Indiana they aren't going to get much bang for their buck. Ronald Reagan understood the balance of power: the Russians have too many warheads and we have too few. If we are going to enter into an agreement with the former Soviets, we must "Trust but verify." Senator Lugar thoroughly coached Barack Obama on this START treaty that is heavy on the trust but woefully short on the verify.

Lugar's disconnect from the residents of the very conservative state he represents is further demonstrated by his ham-handed defense of his votes in favor of Obama's nominees to the Supreme Court:

Lugar said he looks at a nominee's character and personal qualifications in order to avoid creating a polarizing atmosphere.

"I hope that people sort of understand this because otherwise we polarize the Supreme Court business to a point that conservative justices offered by a conservative Republican president -- who will be elected at some point -- are going to have trouble," Lugar said.

Conservative nominees are always faced with a polarizing response from Democrats and their accomplices in the media in recent decades. There's simply no excuse for such head-in-the-sand political posturing. It wasn't that long ago that Samuel Alito was vilified by Lugar's non-polarizing pals on the other side of the aisle to the point that his wife was brought to tears during confirmation hearings. RINOs always seem to believe that their imagined chivalry will be repaid in kind by the amoral leftists slithering on the other side. I hope that Lugar doesn't go holding his breath waiting for professional courtesy from the Democrats. Before too long, we'll be calling him Senator Blue.

Still one has to wonder about Lugar's in-depth analysis of Elena Kagan and the Sonja Sotomayor. The former is the personification of the term "red diaper baby." Sotomayor is living down to Jeffrey Rosen's pre-nomination assessment of her as

...not that smart and kind of a bully on the bench.,.she has an inflated opinion of herself and is domineering during oral arguments, but her questions aren't penetrating and don't get to the heart of the issue.

True conservatives aren't afraid of polarization due to sticking to their principles. Dick Lugar was willing to surrender nearly a quarter of the seats on the Supreme Court, without a fight, in the interest of creating a potentially more cuddly nominating process for some imaginary future Republican president.

Lugar is busy fund-raising, gathering signatures and blowing smoke in an attempt to run off the coming Tea Party challenge. Mere bluster, however, won't put make-up on his pig of a voting record on SCOTUS nominees, nor his useful-idiot tub-thumping for the weak START treaty.

Here in Indiana, we are still waiting for Dick Lugar to show some conservative bona fides.

Ralph Alter is a regular contributor to American Thinker. He blogs at www.rightot.blogspot.com