Colorado senator Ken Salazar is proving himself a solid Democratic investment. First he intervened in the case of the Denver 3, the current cause celebre of leftwing bloggers. On March 21, three Democrats were ejected from a taxpayer-funded town hall appearance by George Bush, who is touring the country to drum up support for his unpopular plan to privatise social security. Salazar has been asking questions in the capital about why citizens are being barred from seeing their president by someone who appears to have been impersonating a secret service officer.
Now he has entered into a very public slanging match with one of America's largest rightwing evangelical groups, Focus on the Family. After Focus took out advertisements across the country to attack Democrats opposing changes to rules on judicial filibusters, Salazar responded with an open letter accusing Focus of being both un-Christian and anti-Catholic.
"I would further encourage you to cease your unfounded attacks on the faith of my Democratic colleagues. The Senate controversy over judges is simply about whether the rules should be broken in the pursuit of power," Salazar wrote.
It's nice to see a Democrat trying to reclaim Christianity - and the moral high ground - from rightwing zealots.
