Tom Cotton, the junior senator from Arkansas, tends to embarrass a lot of other politicians by his lonely stands for principle. Sometimes they're not so lonely.
The senator just joined a number of other prominent Republicans--like Ted Cruz--in returning his campaign donations from one Earl Holt, who runs an outfit devoted to setting people against each other, stirring up white folks against black, and generally spreading hateful emotions.
Rand Paul, another senator, decided to write a check to a memorial fund for the victims of the massacre at a storied old church in Charleston--in the amount his presidential campaign had received from the odious Mr. Holt. However it's done, upright and honest officeholders, people of good will, will sever all connections with types like Earl Holt--and make it clear just why, as Senator Cotton did: "I have returned Mr. Holt's donation because I do not agree with his hateful beliefs and language and believe they are hateful to our country."
No politician can reasonably be expected to screen every donor to his campaign, but once he realizes the source of a tainted contribution, he should waste no time giving the money back. Which is what Tom Cotton has done. Which is what any politician with a moral compass would do. The haters among us should be outed, denounced, and ostracized. Shame is still a powerful weapon when it is wielded in a good cause, as the junior senator from Arkansas has just shown.
Then there are other politicians who take money either for themselves, their campaigns, or their foundations and don't seem at all bothered about it. Like the Clintons, who run a worldwide network of foundations that'll apparently take money from any country or company without apology. Hillary, Bill and Chelsea Clinton speak only of all the good this money does, overlooking its sordid sources. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Algeria and Brunei aren't exactly citadels of human rights. Indeed, all of them have made the State Department's list of countries that discriminate against women and generally ignore the whole idea of equal rights for all their citizens, or rather subjects.
Will the Clintons return the tens of millions they've collected from such regimes or their commercial fronts? Or even acknowledge the ethical problem of accepting such contributions while prattling on abut the need for equality? They show no sign of recognizing their monumental hypocrisy, and some of us doubt they ever will. As always, they seem immune to shame. And hypocrisy became the ocean in which they swim long ago. Would they even know what the Tom Cottons of the world are talking about when they speak of having nothing to do with tainted money? They're too busy taking it.
Editorial on 07/01/2015