In Defense Of Sen. John Cornyn

The conservative blogopshere is plenty angry at Sen. John Cornyn voting to confirm Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary.

Just for one example, here is The Weekly Standard Blog:

One of the 10 GOP senators to vote for Geithner was John Cornyn--the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the GOP's Senate campaign arm. Apparently, Cornyn believed he had to give Geithner the "benefit of the doubt" on the issue of his unpaid taxes. Can you imagine Cornyn's counterpart Chuck Schumer giving the benefit of the doubt to a GOP appointment in a similar situation? Appointing and confirming a cabinet member who broke the law strikes many as unjust--a perfect example of Washington politicians playing by their own rules. This is the kind of thing that the party out of power runs against every election.

I think we need to stop asking ourselves how different things would be if it were a Republican confirmation hearing, and what the Democats would do. We know what they would do. They would do anything to dismiss or denigrate the appointee, no matter how qualified. Thank God, we are not like the Democrats. Why would we think we should be?

The only negative against Geithner was his omission on his taxes. Yes, it was embarassing, but not disqualifying. Both Republicans and Democrats had agreed that he was a good man for this job. Sen. John Cornyn honestly believed that Geithner's mistake was an honest mistake.

No one seems to be asking what the alternative would be. Our country is in an economic crisis. Should we be like Democrats and put our pettiness before the good of the country? I should hope not.

The alternative might, and probably would have been, so much worse. Unlike the Democrats when Bush was President, Republicans don't want our country to fail economically just because we have a Democrat in the White House. That's the way the Democrats play the game, not us.

Sen. Cornyn has been fighting the good fight for while now. Give him some credit when he has to make an unpopular decision.