Burnt Orange Report

For da shorteez

By Nathan Nance

Since Rep. Henry Bonilla has stated his intentions to run for KBH's senate seat if she makes a go at Gov. Perry, I thought it would be fun to link to this clip.

It's from his appearance on The Daily Show this summer. Jon Stewart asked him about the National Journal ranking of Sen. Kerry as the No. 1 most liberal senator. It seems like such a long time ago, but that was a talking point so that they could say that "he's to the left of Ted Kennedy" and get away with it.

Stewart asks him where this ranking came from and (no official count) Bonilla says "trial lawyers" like a dozen times. He gets caught in some kind of circular logic that trial lawyers and other liberal interest groups ranked him as liberal so he should be proud of it and call himself a liberal. Stewart drops the bomb on him that he knows Bonilla is full of crap by telling him it is the National Journal ranking.

He then asks him if that No. 1 ranking is from his whole career, to which Bonilla says "yes". Wrong again. The ranking was just from 2003, when Kerry had been away campaigning. If he had missed one more vote, he wouldn't have been ranked at all. Over his senate career, Kerry is well within the moderate range.

I could never decide if Bonilla was fibbing on purpose, or if he just spouts off talking points without knowing where they come from like a parrot. Either way serves not the people of Texas, but his own partisan interests. Just something to keep in mind when the 2006 election comes around.