Mac Thornberry is going to run for re-election to a ninth term in Congress. He announced his intention to seek re-election today, saying that “this is a critical time for our nation.”
Do you think?
Here is something that might surprise some of his critics: Thornberry, a Clarendon Republican, never vowed to limit the number of terms he would serve when he was elected to Congress in 1994. However, he did vow to support term limits measures that came before the House. He has done so every time.
It’s one thing to support term limits in principle, but quite another to impose them on yourself. Indeed, some of Thornberry’s fellow ’94 House classmates did impose such limits on themselves, only to renege on them later. The most notorious, perhaps, was former Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., who had defeated then-Speaker Tom Foley. Nethercutt said categorically during the campaign that he would serve three terms. He, um, “misled” voters by seeking a fourth term. He eventually was defeated for re-election.
But those Thornberry critics who keep harping on his support of term limits, only to keep running for re-election, are being dishonest in their criticism. He has been true to his own support of the idea of term limits, but he has never promised to impose such limits on his own service in Congress.
Let the campaign begin.