God Bless Ben Sasse

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Check with Chip, brought to you by Operation
Blue Dot Red. Turning the Blue Dot Red one podcast
at a time. Yes, the crusade to turn the Blue
Dot Red continues, but the focus shifts a bit to day.
I stumbled into an interview of Ben Sass. I wasn't
looking for it, and then I could not look away.

(00:23):
Sass is dying of cancer. Apparently his treatment, which is
buying him some extra time, affects his skin. His face
appears to be oozing blood. It's evocative of the face
of Christ during the Passion. I was not a fan
of Sass the politician. I have to be honest about this.
I don't want to be a phony. Sass ran for

(00:45):
office as a robust Tea Party MAGA populist conservative, but
once elected, performed as a creature of Washington, and he
was a darling of Washington. He made numerous speeches about
how dysfunctional Washington was and was hailed for presenting a bold, fresh,
enlightened approach to politics, but he disappeared during the Capitol

(01:06):
Hill battle over Obamacare, after running as the man with
the plan on repealing Obamacare and improving the health care system.
Though he served on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where the
left attempted to demolish Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh with
false and vicious accusations. Sas did not engage. He became

(01:27):
a loud and frequent critic of President Trump and trumps supporters,
but when his re election year rolled around, he backed
off and let it be known that he and Trump
talked often and got along. Yet he responded to Trump's
endorsement of his reelection by saying he didn't ask for
it and was not beholden to Trump. Once safely re elected,

(01:48):
he resumed attacking Trump and voted to convict then former
President Trump on the impeachment charge based on the January
sixth riot. In the earlier drafts of my book on
fiscal policy, the one with the Constitution on the cover,
I had some harsh commentary directed at Sas. When he
left politics for academia, I removed that material from the book.

(02:12):
I didn't want to go after someone no longer in
the political arena. He still figures into my commentary on
the filibuster, but so do several other senators. Sas is
not the focus. SAS's current challenge and the grace with
which he is facing. It is a reminder that politics
is not the most important thing in life. From what

(02:35):
I know, he has been a devout Christian and an
excellent husband and father. A few years ago, Sas was
on top of the world. Everything seemed to be going
his way. Many in the political world saw him as
a likely future president. Now cancer is literally destroying him,

(02:56):
and he carries himself with the same tone and meaner
and principles that he did when everything was coming up. Roses.
I hope the same can be said of me if
I some day find myself in a similar situation. God
bless you, Ben says. May you, your wife and your

(03:16):
children treasure the time you have left together in this life,
And I smile thinking of the reward waiting for you
in the next. That's check with Chip. I'm Chip Maxwell.
Thank you for listening.