One of the most resilient lies in today’s popular rhetoric is the liberals’ charge that the Republican Party is waging a “War on Women.”

Yet, liberals are appallingly absence-without-leave, when they are called upon to condemn actual violence against women, such as the five progressive Democrats, who voted not to expel now former state representative Carlos Henriquez from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Great and General Court after his conviction for beating—as The Boston Globe puts it: “a woman known to him.”
Henriquez is serving six months as the guest of the commonwealth for misdemeanor assault, but he was allowed to address his colleagues on the House floor, which set up a nice contrast with the photos of the bruised and swollen victim that were also on House floor for legislators to check for themselves.
To the credit of the state’s ruling party, Henriquez was expelled by a vote of 146 to 5, but only after the New England Chapter of the New England National Association for the Advancement of Colored People issued a letter begging the Democrats to grant Democrat Henriquez, a black politician representing Boston’s iconic black community of Roxbury.
State Rep. Russell E. Holmes, a Democrat representing Mattapan, another black community, offered an amendment to the motion to expel that would have left Henriquez in office with a censure. The Russell amendment lost 10-143.
The other Democrats state representatives joining Holmes in opposition to the expulsion were Roxbury’s Gloria L. Fox, Springfield’s Benjamin Swan and Somerville’s Denise Provost and Medford-Somerville’s Carl M. Scioritino Jr.
In his statement explaining his vote to keep a man convicted of beating a woman as his colleague in the House, Scioritino said Henriquez was a bad guy, who was already in jail.
“I wish he had resigned. I voted today to censure Representative Henriquez, which I believe is the strictest punishment the House has the authority to impose on a duly elected member.”
Apparently, Scioritino voted to keep Henriquez in office because the House did not have the authority to remove him.
A quick check of the Massachusetts Legislature’s website reveals that Henriquez is no longer on the roster of legislators, so the authority and option exist.
Instead of expelling the convict, Scioritino said he would have preferred that the House impeach Henriquez and then sent the indictment to the Senate for a conviction there and then expulsion.
Hmmm. There is something sweet about a Democrat calling for an impeachment.
Up until 1998, the attempt to impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon was taught as the courageous act. After 1998, the idea of impeachment of a president is taught to be the height of congressional and partisan arrogance.
In was in 1998, of course, that President William J. Clinton was impeached for actions associated with a sexual harassment suit against him dating back to when he was the governor of Arkansas and his seduction of an intern 30 years his junior.
Another White House aide, one brought to Washington from Arkansas, claimed that Clinton began to molest her in the Oval Office, when she asked for an ambassadorship or other higher position to help her while her family suffered financial reverses. Shocked and embarrassed, she escaped the president’s clutches and went home to tell her husband what happened. That night, he killed himself.
Certainly, Clinton behaved as a monster—even if judged by what he admitted to. Yet, when Democrats talk about a war on women, Clinton gets a hall pass.
Why? The best guess is that not even the Democrats believe in a war on women beyond its rhetorical utility. Followers of Somerville politics are no doubt aware that not only have Provost and Scioritino presented themselves as on the side of women, but their vote to keep Henriquez on the payroll and serving at their side.
It is further interesting that neither one will suffer for their vote. In this way, they will get a hall pass, too.