As we know, in most states, when a senator leaves office prematurely, such as by death or “abrupt retirement”, it falls upon the governor to appoint his or her replacement.

Those liberals in Massachusettes were okay with that until a few years ago, when they had a Republican governor (Mitt Romney) and they fretted, “What happens if Teddy suddenly kicks the bucket? This governor might replace him with a Republican! We can’t have that!”

Being a lefty state, they figured they’d be safe if they left the replacement of a senator to the voters, so they changed the law.

Now a senator has to be replaced by someone elected by the voters.

Or so the law says.

However, fickle that they are, now that Ted’s gone and they have a Democrat governor at the moment, they feel that, after all, rules are meant to be broken.

Gov. Deval Patrick named former Democratic Party chairman Paul G. Kirk Jr. to the late Edward Kennedy’s Senate seat Thursday and said the rushed, temporary appointment was necessary because the issues before Congress were “too important to Massachusetts for us to be one voice short.”

“too important to Massachusetts for us to be one voice short.”

Of course it is.

Had Romney been governor and the same thing happened, with him appointing a Republican as interim senator, there would have been one hell of an explosion in that state legislature, since in that case a prompt appointment wouldn’t have been all that important, after all

Patrick’s appointment means Kirk will serve in the interim post until voters pick a replacement in a Jan. 19 special election. Kirk said he would not be a candidate in the special election.

This week, lawmakers gave Patrick the appointment power, five years after taking that power away when Republican Mitt Romney was in office. The legislation did not take effect immediately, so Patrick had to sign an emergency letter Thursday to make the appointment right away.

These liberals are so transparently hypocritical and so obviously hold the intelligence of the voting public in profound contempt that one has to wonder how anyone with an iota of said intelligence can take them seriously enough to vote for them.