Make no mistake about it. Ron Johnson doesn't represent Wisconsin in the U.S. Senate. Most days he represents some other alternative universe. Yesterday he represented the extremist National Rifle Association.
It was a simple question that our other U.S. Senator, Tammy Baldwin, had no trouble answering in the affirmative. Did the parents of the children slaughtered in the gun murders at Newtown deserve a debate and a vote on a few mild bipartisan proposals to control guns?
Even sixteen Republicans joined Baldwin and other Democrats and voted to begin debate. Johnson and thirty other extremists voted no. Ron Johnson doesn't want to allow so much as a civil discussion on modest gun control legislation in the wake of one of the most gut wrenching gun massacres in recent history.
Even the weak background checks bill may not pass without being further watered down in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Who knows what fate awaits it in the House. As Abraham Lincoln said in another context: "Has it not got down as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death?"
Sen. Johnson can't even bring himself to sit at the table where that whisper of a meal is being offered.
