Left In Lowell

Although we’ve got plenty on our political plate in Lowell, with the 5th CD and the city council race, when something really telling happens in the very early ‘08 Presidential race, it should be noted. And these quotes from Richardson are highly disappointing, given his very credible foreign policy resume, and the admiration from the blogosphere, many of whom believe he’s a credible candidate:

Two recent stories illustrate the bumbling reality of Richardson’s campaign, and how it contrasts with his glowing résumé. The first concerns the Guv’s dumbass decision during last week’s debate to name Byron “Whizzer” White — one of the two dissenters in Roe v. Wade, and a dissenter from the majority in Miranda — as his model Supreme Court justice. Yet that’s not the worst part. When pressed to square his professed admiration for White with his alleged support for reproductive freedom and civil rights, Richardson made two more boners. Which one bothers you more?

A) He cited the fact that White “was an All-American football player besides being a legal scholar” as a justification for describing the often retrograde White as his model High Court member;

B) He apparently doesn’t really know or care about Roe, given that he excused his White pick by saying, “White was in the 60s. Wasn’t Roe v. Wade in the 80s?”

I can’t find another source other than the samefacts.com one for the second quote, though Mark Kleiman appears to have been liveblogging the CA Dem convention, but if true, it’s got to be numbered among the most stupid statements from a presidential candidate on our side. Richardson seriously doesn’t know when Roe was decided? And lists one of the dissenters as his model Justice but doesn’t know White’s judicial history because he thinks Roe is less than three decades old? Do I want a woman’s right to choose in the hands of someone who doesn’t even know its most basic history?