Obama's Surgeon General Pick May Defeat the Gun Lobby, Thanks to Chastened Democrats
Senate Armed Services Committee Member U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) talks with reporters after being briefed by military officals about the prisoner exchange that freed Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl at the U.S. Capitol June 10, 2014 in Washington, DC. The trade of Bergdahl for five senior Taliban officials has angered some members of Congress because they were not informed of the swap beforehand.
Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesThe White House's very bad 2014, and two even worse years for gun-safety activists, may end with a victory Monday. The Democratic Senate majority has set up an evening vote on Vivek Murthy, the young and outspoken nominee for surgeon general who was opposed by the NRA. Murthy, who'd previously spoken (and tweeted) about the dangers of gun violence, was easily halted by the gun rights lobby when his nomination first emerged from committee. "Contact your senators and ask them to oppose confirmation of President Obama’s radically antigun nominee," thundered the NRA in an action alert. It worked, and Democrats decided not to make their many red-state senators take a hard vote.
Those senators went on to lose their elections anyway. The NRA's role in that, ironically, may bail out Murthy. In 2014, the standard for avoiding the NRA's wrath became so high, so pure, that no Democrat could reach it. None of the Democratic senators who attempted to shoo off the gun lobby, by opposing all of the post Newtown-gun bills, won the NRA's endorsement. Most of them were buried under NRA TV ads.