How to Commit Political Suicide

I met Curt Weldon early in his political career and kind of liked him. A conservative Republican, he was running for Congress in an overwhelmingly Democratic district in the rust bucket river wards south of Philadelphia and promised to shake thing up. That was a good thing. He was a volunteer fireman, a hardy bunch that I admire, and that was a good thing, too.

Weldon won and has kept getting reelected not so much because he shook things up, which never really happened, but because he was as adept at bringing home the pork, including keeping a Boeing helicopter assembly plant alive, as he had been at putting out fires.

I always had the feeling that Weldon was a card or two short of a full deck, which he has a habit of revealing with his periodic over-the-top statements on foreign policy and defense matters that he seems to barely understand.

Now Weldon, who is running for reelection for the umpteenth time, may have finally done his dash by breaking a cardinal rule of politics: He has made the medical condition of a member of his Democratic opponent's family a campaign issue.

That would be Alexandra Sestak, five-year-old daughter of retired Navy Vice Admiral Joe Sestak and his wife, Susan. Alexandra has a malignant brain tumor, was given three to nine months to live last summer and has endured three surgeries and chemotherapy at the Children's National Medical Center in Washington.

Wingnut Weldon has attacked Sestak for continuing to live in Alexandria, Va., so he can be close to Alexandra, instead of moving back to Weldon's Pennsylvania district, where the Sestaks rent a home, and putting his daughter in a Pennsylvania Hospital.

For his part, Sestak says that as soon as doctors give Alexandra the all-clear, he'll buy a house in Pennsylvania. He also had this to say:

I understand the political arena. I knew that this campaign would thrust my family into the media spotlight and we are prepared for that. But I want to make it very clear to Congressman Weldon, that any remarks regarding my daughter, Alexandra's, treatment will not be tolerated.

. . . Though we recognize the important work done by the many hospitals in and around Philadelphia, it was our personal choice to have Alex treated in Washington at the Children's Hospital because of its outstanding work on pediatric brain tumors. This decision was based on many things – none of which were political.

Amen, Admiral. And sayonara, Kurt. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out of Washington.