Sen. Chris Coons hoped to become Secretary of State in the Biden administration. Instead, his old boss has given him a far less appealing job — “ambassador” to Senate Republicans.
Politico has the story. It notes that Coons “has spent a decade developing relationships with Senate Republicans across the spectrum.” “Those partnerships,” it says, “will be more important than ever as Biden faces the real possibility of at least two years of a GOP Senate majority and a Republican Party still led by an antagonistic former President Donald Trump.”
Coons might be a nice guy. More importantly, he has access to Biden, which makes him someone with whom Republicans can talk when they want to know where the president stands.
But Senate Republicans need to keep in mind that Coons is not their friend. He’s an unreconstructed leftist. His rating from the American Conservative Union for the 115th Congress was below 10 percent. This put him in the ACU’s “coalition of the radical left.”
Senate Republicans should also remember that Coons is a snake. He pulled out all the stops to promote the groundless accusation that Brett Kavanaugh, his law school friend, committed rape.
It was Coons who brought baseless, politically motivated claims of sexual misconduct to the FBI’s attention. It was Coons who persuaded Sen. Jeff Flake to pressure Republican leadership into stopping the confirmation process while the bogus claims were investigated.
It was Coons who claimed, absurdly, that the burden of proof was on Kavanaugh to prove that allegations never raised for many decades were false. And Coons, in lock step with all other Senate Dems, voted against confirming Kavanaugh even after the FBI found no merit in the allegations against Kavanaugh.
Coons viewed Flake as the functional equivalent of John McCain, with whom Biden used to work. Flake was happy to serve in that capacity and Coons was eager to cast him in the role — even though it meant that Coons’ old friend endured a degrading public trial on the worst kind of slanderous accusations.
Flake is no longer in the Senate. However, McCain’s old amigo Lindsey Graham is.
According to Politico, immediately after the election several GOP senators, including Graham, privately called Coons to let him know they needed to work together. Graham says:
[Coons] is going to be one of the most influential people in the Senate, because of his relationship with [Biden] and his relationship with his colleagues. He’s in a very pivotal role. He tries to do deals, he has the confidence of Biden.
Of course Coons has the confidence of Biden. Why wouldn’t he? He’s a party loyalist who has carried gallons of water for Biden.
But Coons shouldn’t have the confidence of any Republican Senator. They should view him not as an ambassador. That’s too honorable. They should view him (in the words of one of my friends) as Biden’s access lobbyist.
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