Buck off

EDITORS' NOTE: This week we thought we would explore the complex, knotty, and recondite international law issues raised by the current war in the Middle East.  However, much to our surprise, we discovered that the difficult ground had been fully and thoughtfully considered by the leading experts in the field, including (1) Alvy Singer's second wife and her Barnard Comp Lit faculty colleagues, (2) every snot-nosed college student, and (3) our Wonderful Progressive Allies who have learned how to spell “colonialism.” What more can we add to their careful and judicious writings and Tweets in this area?  So we thought we'd discuss something simpler and easier: our latest Republican ally.

By Cissy Paterson
Spy Washington Bureau with Nellie Bly in Colorado

Days after Colorado Republican Rep. Ken Buck joined every single f***in' one of his colleagues in voting to install an insane Christian dominionist insurrectionist bigoted election denier as Speaker of the US House of Representatives, ol' Ken put out a press release announcing his retirement because he can no longer abide the election denial lunacy of his fellow Republicans.

According to The Washington Post,

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) said Wednesday that he would not seek reelection next year, expressing disappointment that many fellow Republicans continue to push the “big lie” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

“Our nation is on a collision course with reality, and a steadfast commitment to truth, even uncomfortable truths, is the only way forward,” Buck said in a video posted to X, formerly known as Twitter. “Too many Republican leaders are lying to America.”

Immediately this long time Republican extremist was lionized as another Man of Principle, like Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger:

With a deadpan demeanor, an independent streak and a background as a federal prosecutor, Buck has gained national prominence as a House Republican fed up with Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 presidential election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden and the Trump allies in Congress who amplify them. It’s a stand few others in the GOP are taking and is a remarkable turn that shows just how deeply Trump’s once-fringe lies about that race have settled into the Republican mainstream.  

Who was Ken Buck, and how did he come to be shocked, shocked by Republican lies?

After graduating from Princeton, the university that has given us any number of distinguished politicians including Cancun Ted Cruz and Eliot “the Ladies' Man” Spitzer, he found himself working for that sterling constitutional scholar, Dick Cheney.

Buck labored for Cheney's whitewash of the Iran-Contra scandal, which involved St. Ronald of Bitburg violating a clear Congressional prohibition on contra aid by laundering money through Iran.  Buck's efforts produced the following:

After completing a bachelor’s degree at Princeton University and a law degree at the University of Wyoming, Buck worked for then-Wyoming Rep. Dick Cheney, who was the top Republican on the committee investigating the Reagan administration for the Iran-Contra affair. Cheney, who is Liz Cheney’s father, eventually issued a minority report that argued that President Ronald Reagan had wide latitude to conduct foreign policy and described the president’s actions as “mistakes in judgment, and nothing more.” 

Cheney's whitewash of Reagan's obstructions of justice and payment for atrocities and war crimes (If you don't believe us, just ask the experts at the Barnard Department of Comp. Lit) paved the way for Deadeye Dick's even more serious violations of international and US law in connection with torture and the lies that attended the pointless Iraq War.

He came to Washington representing the hard-right rural Fourth District of Colorado in 2014, as part of the white-supremacist backlash to the intolerable insult of a Black President who was actually good at his job.  

He arrived on Capitol Hill with a, um, bang:

Funny story about that stunt performed by our young Princeton man with a commitment to upholding the law:

DENVER (CBS4) - Republican congressmen are no strangers to fighting for gun rights, but did a Colorado representative break the law by bringing his AR-15 to a Capitol Hill office?

Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado is causing controversy after tweeting a photo of himself and South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy holding an AR-15 rifle on Capitol Hill.

The assault weapon is illegal in Washington, D.C. Members of Congress are legally entitled to carry guns with them in Capitol Hill offices, but transporting an AR-15 through Washington, D.C., may be a different story. 

In those days it was illegal to bring weapons of war that have no use other than shredding human flesh 40 times or more per minute into the District. And that's only part of the point. Buck, now so sickened by Republican lies that he has to flee for the wide open spaces of the Eastern Front or more likely a cushy career as cable gasbag and go-to anti-Trump Republican, had no problem propagating lies about the wonders of human-liquefying weaponry two years after the Sandy Hook massacre. The Republican lie about the constitutional right of anyone to own weapons of mass murder continues to resonate today, most recently in and around Lewiston, Maine.

After putting away his weapon of mass destruction, Buck went on to defend the American constitutional system in so many other ways:

 What about the Tangerine-Faced Sex Offender attracted our principled legal eagle? 

On Thursday morning Buck told the Colorado delegation in Cleveland to essentially get over it and get behind Trump. He said the makeup of the Supreme Court for decades to come is on the line.

"If we allow a 6 to 3, 7 to 2 majority to exist in the United States of America, we lose every right that we hold dear as conservatives. We have got to suck it up. We have got to vote for Donald Trump. We have got to support Donald Trump. And in the end we have got to do everything we can to hold him, to hold his administration responsible," said Buck, who represents Colorado's Fourth Congressional District.

Not just the right to parade around the Capitol with lethal semi-automatic weapons, but all those other rights, like the right to gerrymander themselves into perpetual power even when they cannot command a majority of the vote (thank you, John Roberts '76!), the right to tell women what they can do with their own reproductive systems (thank you, Sam Alito!), and the right to expose your fellow citizens to lethal disease.

Buck got his priorities straight, and his no-doubt fervid prayers were answered by the successful transformation of the Supreme Court into a self-appointed reactionary court of revision that decides the nation's policy agenda despite what those pesky elected officials may think.  Another triumph of Buck's style of American constitutionalism.

Perhaps his opponent said it best a long time ago:

For Ken Buck, it was never about the Constitution. It has always been about power. It’s about the power to micromanage a President, even as the Congress repeatedly fails to take responsibility and to do its job; the power to block legislation proposed by members of his own party; the power to punish Americans who are poor, unemployed, or who are facing hard times and tough choices. For Ken Buck, “promoting conservative values” is simply a euphemism for making sure that money and power stay with the people who already have money and power. Buck seems to be convinced that a Trump presidency would help meet those objectives. He’s probably right.

Back to the good earth of Colorado for Ken!

Buck could have come out against Trump, as several of his Republican colleagues have already done, if not on constitutional grounds than at least for Trump’s reaction to the Khan family. Instead, he has chosen to remain silent while Trump insults the sacrifices of military families. Instead of condemning Trump’s polarizing rhetoric, Buck has piled on his own “us v. them” statements.

Politics doesn’t shape your priorities. It exposes them. For Ken Buck, it turns out that the Constitution is not really a priority after all. 

Nor, it appears, was the truth.

The man from the prairie who quit his job because he was sick of Republican lies in fact built his entire political career on them: The lie that machine guns make us safer.  The lie that men should control women's bodies.  The lie that it's OK to bend American democracy to ensure permanent Republican minority rule.  The lie that the depraved Tangerine-Faced Defendant was a fit person to lead the United States.

Speaking of lies, we wonder if the Buckster is lying about the real reason he stepped down.  Maybe it wasn't that his delicate sensibilities could no longer stomach his colleagues.  Maybe the real reason for his departure was that he was a Republican Dead Man Walking:

Yet under political pressure in Colorado, Buck decided there was no way forward for him in Congress.

Translated into English, he was about to be successfully primaried by some Trump-backed goon in his district, whose Republican voters have lost their minds due to the incessant harsh winds sweeping across the desolate prairie of eastern Colorado. 

So if the next time we see our glorious new Republican ally pontificating about the truth on CNN or somewhere else, you'll pardon us if we switch to reruns of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.  We like our fiction funny.  And kind.