Sunday, February 18th, 2007...11:15 am
Silly Republican Tricks
I haven’t had a lot of time to write things on here over the last few days, but a few statements given during the Iraq debate have struck me as rather dumb.
First, we start with John Shadegg. His statement on the House floor was unremarkable. I can sum up his and one hundred other of the Republican’s statements with “Well, I am not calling my colleagues who vote for this traitors, instead, I’m stopping three or four microns short of doing so…” What is more noteworthy is the “Dear Colleague” letter that he and Peter Hoekstra sent that contained this revealing statement:
Thanks to the liberal mainstream media, Americans fully understand the consequences of continuing our efforts in Iraq - both in American lives and dollars.
Damn that liberal media…they are making people understand what is going on. How dare they.
(Does this imply that Fox and other conservative media sources haven’t been making Americans understand Iraq?)
A couple of dumb ass statements were made (well, only a couple that I heard). One was from Representative Ginny Brown-Waite of Florida. Here we are having a debate on the lives of thousands of Americans, a debate that has consequences for America’s place in the world over the next few decades. In times like these, we turn to important works from the past, Shakespeare, Voltaire, Socrates or maybe the Psalms. Brown-Waite wanted to turn to a famous thinker for inspiration, and elevated the debate to the levels it deserved. She quoted…
Way to keep it high-minded lady.
(Oh, by the way, Brown-Waite quotes Larry as if she’s got some serious southern redneck cred. She’s originally from Albany, attended Cornell and is a member of a British Car Club (her website notes that she owns an MG, but doesn’t own a Bentley). What’s more, her husband is a retired New York State Trooper. She ain’t even southern by marriage.)
Congressman Todd Akin of Missouri made a reference to Davy Crockett at the Alamo, a battle that was lost, by the way, not only too few troops were sent but because the place was indefensible (the volunteers ignored the advice of the military leadership and went anyway):
Could you picture Davy Crockett at the Alamo, looking at his BlackBerry, getting a message from Congress? ‘Davy Crockett, we support you. The only thing is we are not going to send any troops.
Dude, that was in 1836, nobody had BlackBerrys yet. Crockett still used a Tandy Zoomer. Also, why the heck would Crockett have been writing to the US Congress for more troops? He was fighting on behalf of the Republic of Texas, at that time a sovreign nation. Do they give these guys any sort of test before they get elected?
I’m sure you’ve all read about Virgil Goode’s ignorant rant that claimed that al-Quaeda wants the phrase “In Mohammed We Trust” on our money. Even someone with the shallowest view of Islam would know that a faithful muslim would find this sort of thing blasphemous. Memo to Rep. Goode and the other Republicans: this sort of silly statement just feeds into the view of whiny liberals like me that your support for these policies are driven by xenophobia and ignorance.
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