From: [r--ic--n] at [aol.com] (RonMicklin)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Brooks and BATF
Date: 16 Oct 1994 01:15:04 -0400

In the aftermath of the so-called crime bill, as Rep. Jack Brooks (D-TX-9)
sinking polling numbers increasingly resemble his credibility, and his
respect for the bill of rights rises accordingly, his dispirited and
desperate campaign organization and friends have developed a strategy to
sanitize his sullied and serpentine reputation among key factions of his
constituency. Seems the S.S. Brooks  - the cruise ship that docks at Port
Reelection every two years - has been losing paying customers and taking
on water for calling starboard and steering to port.

The NRAs 05, October proxy announcement of Brooks’ intent to conduct a
review of the BATF, however, - he’s been doing a fair bit of that sort of
thing lately has he not? - openly calls into question his credibility and
his purpose. Rep. Brooks, for example, offered his tactical advice
regarding the Waco tragedy on C-SPAN several months ago: "...run everybody
off, quietly put a bomb in that damn water tank, put tear gas in there. If
they wanted to shoot, kill ‘em when they came out...." Brooks also
suggested then that the BATF should be doubled or tripled in size, yet now
claims ‘(it has) not read the bill of rights.’

As Republican challenger Steve Stockman continues to cut into bases of
support that Brooks could have taken for granted in elections past - the
Teamsters endorsement of Stockman being the most prominent "defection" to
date - Brooks has no choice but to make a dramatic gesture to shore up the
confidence of the faithful and to regain the allegiance of those who have
wavered or gone over.  Now that the legislative session is over,  there
will be no more bills put up for a vote where Brooks might demonstrate his
Oxfordesque, party before country, allegiance, but it will be difficult,
nonetheless, for him to stop the bleeding. 

Brooks’ reelection chances have plummeted among core constituencies for
his very visible and crass politicization of the crime bill, for his
public rejection of the wishes of his constituency with regard to the
Clinton tax increases, for his open and public support for mail order
sales taxes in Texas and generally for the apt and accurate perception
that he is simply a Clinton crony.  Despite Brooks’ erstwhile embrace of
the Himmlerite BATF and its tactics and his ghastly disdain for the Waco
victims (he said that "a fiery death was probably too good for them."), he
has shrewdly calculated that popular sentiment highly favors the kind of
review he has proposed.  Since this translates into votes, it now seems he
is eager to offer prayers on behalf of those he formerly cursed.  

Against the backdrop of his prior statements about the BATF and its
victims, his gun ban sell-out, and the timing of his announcement,
however, this political death-bed conversion can neither be believed nor
trusted.  Brooks would be in much better shape politically and morally had
he said these things months ago when they mattered. But you see, Brooks’
support for gun control was not evident until it mattered to an
arch-liberal President.  Because of who Bill Clinton is, it is important
to remember that Brooks, well-known as one of the most partisan
politicians in all of Washington, will sell us out again when it matters
to Bill Clinton. 

No, time has not run out for the BATF, much as we would like it to be so.
What is more likely, however, is that time has run out for Jack Brooks.


Cordially,
Ronald M. Micklin