O'Guinnicus.com

During the daylight hours of October 2, 2006, Senator Dick Durbin called for the resignation of fellow Illinoisan John Shimkus, stating that Shimkus and his fellow Page Board members decided to “protect themselves instead of trying to protect these pages,” and waxed nostalgic when he proclaimed that “now is the day of reckoning.”

In these days of partisan politics, it’s easy to see why Senator Durbin would make such a ludicrous claim. Republicans are closing the gap on some very hotly contested House and Senate seats. And besides, it’s not like this is the first time that Durbin has made an inflammatory remark.

Looking back to the opening of the Lincoln Library in 2005, Durbin quipped that a Jewish family had thought that Lincoln was a Jew. "After all,” said Durbin, “his first name was Abraham, and then, to confirm it, she learned that John Wilkes Booth shot him in the temple." And who could forget the infamous comparison between the American military and “Nazis, Soviets in their gulags... Pol Pot or others”?

The fact of the matter is that Shimkus has yet to be, and will most likely never be, implicated in any impropriety regarding this unfortunate situation. That Senator Durbin leapt to this irrational course of action diminishes the trust given him by his constituency, just as his inclination towards making outlandish claims speaks poorly of his character.

Jameson O’Guinn
Champaign, Illinois