The Disability of Moderation II

I recently mentioned that Sen. Bob Corker’s supposedly moderate impulses failed to stop him from joining the unhinged right in opposition to an international treaty protecting the rights of people with disabilities. Now, in the wake of the Newtown, Conn. horror, Corker finds himself in bed with the gun loving right and its patron saint, the gun lobby.

As was widely reported over the weekend, NBC’s Meet the Press reached out to all 31 pro-gun-rights senators to invite them to share their views on the Sunday morning show, with (quoting the show’s producer) “no takers.” Bob Schieffer of CBS’s Face the Nation indicated that he, too, could find no Republicans to come on air to talk about gun control.

Corker is a member in good standing of this group of suddenly very camera shy gun-happy lawmakers. A glance at Federal Election Commission campaign finance disclosure data reveals Corker to be one of seven Republican Senate candidates on the receiving end of National Rifle Association dollars ($4,950 to be exact) during the 2012 election cycle. Our other faux moderate senator, Lamar Alexander, cheerfully accepted $9,900 of NRA largessse during the 2008 cycle. (Among Tennessee’s U.S. House members, no Democratic legislators received NRA support during the 2012 cycle, but Reps. Lincoln Davis and Bart Gordon both received NRA contributions in 2010.)

To recap, the Tennessee definition of a moderate: Advance the NRA’s agenda while opposing fair treatment of people with disabilities.

A version of this post appears on the Nashville Scene‘s Pith in the Wind blog.