Olympia Snowe, Stealth Culture Warrior

American Thinker ^ | December 10, 2006 | Jon Reisman

[neverdem]

Less than two weeks before her almost certain reelection to a third term, Olympia Snowe issued a fatwa against Exxon-Mobil and climate change policy skeptics who have had the audacity to openly question her advocacy of Kyoto derived mandatory greenhouse gas emissions controls. Senator Snowe urged Exxon-Mobil to stop resisting her efforts to pass symbolic, expensive and futile GHG regulatory legislation, and most especially to gag two vocal critics: the Competitive Enterprise Institute (headed by economic freedom advocate and 1996 GOP Vice Presidential nominee Jack Kemp) and techcentralstation, a web site devoted to markets, technology and entrepreneurial optimism, as opposed to the Senator's apparent agenda for bureaucracy and precautionary principle pessimism.

Senator Snowe has cultivated an image as a non-ideological moderate who works with the other side of the aisle to get things done. This last barrage against free speech and intellectual pluralism shows that she is in fact a stealthy culture warrior, steadily pushing for the secular progressive left.

This latest attempt to stifle speech she disagrees with is not her worst offense against free speech and the 1^st Amendment's plain language that "Congress shall make NO law...abridging the freedom of speech." Along with Senators McCain, Feingold and Collins, Snowe has primary responsibility for the passage of campaign finance reform legislation that has eroded the plain meaning of the 1^st Amendment into a post-modern judicial and regulatory nightmare. Democrats in Congress are supposedly searching for grounds and evidence to impeach the President; his signature on campaign finance reform legislation vitiating the 1^st Amendment is grounds enough.

Campaign finance reform empowered the wonderful 527's like Moveon.org and the Swift Boat Vets, groups that have polarized our politics and culture while insulating political parties and elected officials from accountability. Moveon, whose top leadership is Maine-based, has received major funding from George Soros, who is the funding Godfather of the secular-progressive left. Not only did Senator Snowe create the conditions which gave us Moveon and Soros' advocacy, it turns out she is engaging in a variety of shadowy cooperative activities with the culture warrior billionaire.

On the global warming front, Senator Snowe co-chairs an international climate change group created by two left wing think tanks backed by Mr. Soros. Through the group Senator Snowe has worked to repudiate President Bush's market based approach in favor of heavy handed regulation to ration energy and raise energy prices- in other words, more green nanny state and less economic freedom and growth. Senator Snowe has been unwilling to honestly answer two basic questions: How much global warming will her policies avert (none) and at what cost (1-3% of GDP)? The lack of honesty, the attacks on freedom and Mr. Soros' involvement suggest that climate change policy is a battlefront in the culture war.

Mr. Soros has also contributed to a liberal Republican Political Action Committee, Main Street Partnership, which Senator Snowe is deeply involved with. In 2004 Senator Snowe co-chaired George Bush's Maine campaign; today she is dancing with a man who spent millions to defeat the President and continues to push the secular progressive agenda.

Senator Snowe has compiled a perfectly moderate lifetime score of 50 from the American Conservative Union and a 53 "liberal" score from the National Journal. But if you delve deeper into her ratings on a variety of culture war issues, it's not a picture of moderation that emerges. On abortion, she gets zeroes from the National Right to Life to Committee and 100's from Planned Parenthood. On the Environment, she's been endorsed by the League of Conservation Voters and has generally earned 70's and above from the LCV. On family issues, she got zeroes from the Family Research Council. On Immigration she got zeroes and teens from the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

A moderate would not have shredded the Constitution and free speech in the name of campaign finance reform. A moderate would not have tried to gag dissenting policy views and threaten businesses and individuals she disagrees with. A moderate would not be dishonest and disingenuous about the costs and benefits of her policy preferences. A moderate would not be working with foreigners to stab her President in the back. And most importantly, a moderate would not be stealthily advocating and enabling one side of the culture war while claiming moderate non-combatant status. Senator Snowe is a stealthy culture warrior in moderate's clothing. I don't think the charade will last for a third term.

Jon Reisman teaches environmental policy and is Chair of the Professional Studies Division at the University of Maine at Machias. He is a Maine Heritage Policy Center Adjunct Fellow, and a contributor to techcentralstation, now known as tcsdaily. He can be contacted at jreisman@maine.edu

[goldstategop]

The Maine Weak Sisters are both flaming liberals.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[vetsvette]

Senator Snowe wouldn't recognize the Constitution if she tripped over it. She's not just a liberal, she's a dumb liberal.

[the Real fifi]

I think this Rockefeller-Snoew letter deserves maximim circulation..and criticism. It is an outrage.

[Obie Wan]

Lincoln Chafee maybe gone but the two RINO's from Maine are still around. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins are about as far from being conservative politicians as Hillary Clinton and are useless to the conservative movement !!!

[DogByte6RER]

Olympia Snowe is Lincoln Chafee in drag.

[longtermmemmory]

Olympia Snowe is a Xazi. (pronounce Haa Zee) It means idiot or fool in Greek.


In circles of those of Greek decent, she is in the same category as Dukakis. People mention her and everyone goes "oh geeze not that loon again."

[samtheman]

The liberals should set up an Intellectual Study Group that lists the Correct Position on All Issues and then the new congress can pass a law against disagreeing with anything on the list.

[sgtbono2002]

They burn a lot of wood in Maine. I think maybe the wood smoke has affected her mind. She sure isnt the brightest bulb on the tree.

[larryjohnson]

Hi,Jon
It's her hormones.Dem wife has same prb but dont dye hair.

[larryjohnson]

Jon is a friend and fellow denier. No ME paper pub this essay

[43north]

I have serious doubts that ANY lieberal congresscritters are smart enough to have even a BASIC knowledge of earth sciences (and probably most other disciplines as well).

All they are about is POWER for themselves and to hell with the truth, the Constitution, and the American people.

[The_Media_never_lie]

No ME paper pub this essay

Are the papers lap dogs, family owned or what?

[Bernard Marx]

She sure isnt the brightest bulb on the tree.

She's apparently smarter than the voters in Maine who keep electing her as a "Republican."

[George W. Bush]

Democrats in Congress are supposedly searching for grounds and evidence to impeach the President; his signature on campaign finance reform legislation vitiating the 1st Amendment is grounds enough.

This is silly writing for a person who is supposed to be a professional academic.

The president does not determine constitutionality. He is expected to sign or veto legislation based on his opinion of it as regards the execution of his own duties. The courts are to determine constitutionality or they have no purpose to exist. Moreover, it would be ironic for Congress to impeach and convict a president for signing legislation they sent him. It's beyond bizarre and silly.

Impeach the members of the Supreme Court for failing to strike CFR down. Bush should have vetoed it but it's not impeachable.

[metesky]

Don't blame me, I wrote in my wife's name same as I did last time Collins ran.

[dennisw]

Where does this nitwit get off disrespecting the Swift Boat Vets? Just to show he's impartial in some way? Take a hike professor! Kerry would be president without the Swift Boat Vets

[MinuteGal]

"I don't think the charade (Snowe's) will last for a third term."

If this perfesser gets paid for thinking, he owes his university a refund.

A state (Maine) that has elected in recent memory the likes of William Cohen, Susan Collins, Edmund Muskie, George Mitchell and Olympia Snowe is into charades in a big way.

There must be something in the tree sap up thar in the Pine Tree State.

Leni

[trisham]

Being from Massachusetts, I can hardly throw stones. Oy.

How on earth did New England become so liberal?

[sgtbono2002]

***She's apparently smarter than the voters in Maine who keep electing her as a "Republican."**

Well thats true, but it really doesnt say much.