Can't someone tell Sen. Orrin Hatch his time is up?
I guess it's up to me.
Senator, I have gone out of my way to defend many of your past stands, such as the DREAM Act to legalize undocumented children, mandatory medical insurance to prevent insurance freeloaders from raising our rates, prescription coverage for seniors and health care for children.
You are now embarrassed by those stands, but were right then and should stay right now. You're avoiding them because you're scared of the Tea Party, but a United States senator should never show fear.
"Go out with dignity," I've told you several times. "Stick to what's right. History will honor you."
Too late. Whatever dignity you still had after renouncing so many of your past beliefs has now shattered like an egg hitting a brick wall.
On Wednesday it was reliably reported that you denounced Planned Parenthood's federal funding, claiming "about 95 percent of all they do, from what I understand, is abortion."
That's nonsense. You understand that now and you understood it then.
Planned Parenthood did 330,000 abortions in 2010, about 3 percent of all its services. Audits have shown none of the money it gets from the federal government is used for abortions.
Your office quickly announced that you "misspoke," which is government-speak for "told a whopper," but you had to know you were parroting Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., who said essentially the same thing a couple months back and then claimed his hooey was "not meant to be a factual statement."
In a way, Kyle's route was better. We all know politicians lie. It was refreshing to see one admit it.
If this were the only whopper you've told lately, I'd say let it go, we all make mistakes. But as I said, you've been doing this a lot lately.
In a telephone interview awhile back, I asked why you were supporting putting a highly controversial Canadian oil pipeline onto a must-pass defense bill that you knew President Barack Obama would have to sign.
I pointed out that the Republicans, in the last election, specifically pledged not to use that sort of "Christmas tree" bill tactic because the evil Democrats did it a lot.
"I don't recall taking a pledge not to work for jobs or energy independence in this country," was your reply.
So much for pledging to debate bills honestly.
On your Facebook page recently -- you and I are Facebook friends! -- you denounced President Obama because under him "unemployment has remained above 8 percent nationally for a record 35 consecutive months."
Unemployment hit 8.3 the month after Obama took office. That was hardly his fault. It hit 10 percent eight months later, but has been dropping ever since and now is 8.3 again. Some of that is Obama's work, but mostly it's the natural trend of the recovery plus a whole bunch of Americans working their tails off.
But you need failure to get re-elected, so high unemployment is Obama's fault.
Planned Parenthood is the latest whipping-boy of politicians looking for someone to vilify to please extremists. You, scared those extremists will pack the state GOP convention and deny you renomination, are piling on.
Where's your desire to help your fellow Utahns?
Planned Parenthood does women's health care and sex education for thousands of Utahns. In many cases, it is the only affordable health care women get.
Considering that the Utah Legislature is pondering reducing sex education in public schools to "Just say no," we are going to need Planned Parenthood even more.
Someone will need to tell kids what it is they're supposed to say "no" to so they don't end up needing an abortion.
Wasatch Rambler is the opinion of Charles Trentelman. You can reach him at ctrentelman@standard.net or 801-625-4232. He also blogs at www.standard.net
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