Kinzinger steps up, does right thing on national stage
John F. Kennedy in his book “Profiles in Courage” wrote about eight senators who bucked public opinion or their own political party to do the right thing.
Take John Quincy Adams, who tussled with his Massachusetts Federalist party. Or Lucius Lamar, a Reconstruction-era Mississippian who called for cooperation between the North and South. Or Nebraskan George Norris and his bold effort to rein in the power of the speaker of the House, a fellow Republican.
Sixty-five years after that was published, tenacity and courage are still in short supply among our elected officials.
Which makes the actions of Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R- Channahon, all the more important.
Kinzinger, a product of Normal Community West High School and a former McLean County Board member, has gained national prominence for his role on the committee to investigate the heinous Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The accounts of that day in testimony are terrifying and gripping — of Capitol police officers being assaulted by a savage crowd armed with guns, Tasers and bear spray. Mayhem reigned. The televised images are still hard to watch.
We continue to be alarmed by the downplaying of what happened, that somehow an attempt to block the lawful transfer of power to President Joe Biden is not a big deal. Equally alarming is that the creation of a bipartisan panel to investigate won only 35 GOP votes in the House and was blocked by Republicans in the Senate.
Party leaders ended up picking a slate of GOP members (including U.S. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville) to serve on the panel, but then two Trump loyalists were rejected by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, setting up a political firestorm.
Republicans decided to boycott the whole thing because it wasn’t bipartisan enough, another example of diverting attention away from the actions inspired by former President Donald Trump. Pelosi ended up going with Kinzinger.
Was that a politically motivated choice?
Of course.
After all, he is also one of 10 House GOP members to back impeachment and was a vocal criticizer of Trump. Critics say he’s been on too many national television shows or is positioning himself for another office. (Like Davis, he is mentioned as a possible Illinois gubernatorial candidate.)
A group called the House Freedom Caucus wants to kick Kinzinger and Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, out of the party because they agreed to join the Jan. 6 committee. Kinzinger has said he’s even at odds with members of his own family and those who backed his first run for Congress in 2009.
But he has pressed on. “You guys all talk about the effects you have to deal with, and you talk about the impact of that day,” Kinzinger told officers during the testimony. “But you guys won. You guys held.”
He delivered on his commitment and protected our Constitution with a bipartisan spirit that’s too often missing among elected officials.
Kinzinger said he’s serving on the panel because “the American people deserve transparency and truth on how and why thousands showed up to attack our democracy.”
The simple truth is, Kinzinger only did what was right. He crossed ideological and party lines in search of the truth.
How that will play out among those who vote for Kinzinger is unclear. Having courage sometimes has that effect.
Consider that the eight senators in “Profiles in Courage” all paid a steep political price. Their political careers were altered, some irreparably.
As Kennedy wrote, too: “In a democracy, every citizen, regardless of his interest in politics, ‘holds office’; every one of us is in a position of responsibility; and, in the final analysis, the kind of government we get depends upon how we fulfill those responsibilities. We, the people, are the boss, and we will get the kind of political leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve.”
— Bloomington Pantagraph, August 7