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As you can tell from the headline, there’s much more to be done here, but I was glad to see that Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) rejected some of the lunacy on display at town hall meetings and being spread by right-wing hatemongers on the airwaves.
Rep. McMorris Rodgers’s statement leaves room for improvement. She said, "I don’t condone calling President Obama Hitler and painting swastikas on signs at town halls". Ok, good–it’d be better to see stronger language–like "I condemn radicals who are mindlessly comparing Obama to Hitler and knowingly spreading lies about health care reform", but I do see this as a step in the right direction. (It would also be nice if Rep. McMorris Rodgers dropped the silly "balance" approach made infamous by our failed media elites: she called for "both sides" to be respectful at town halls. It’s simply incorrect to suggest that the right-wing mobs descending on town halls, threatening to kill Democratic politicians, and egged on by Republicans leaders, are matched by anything on the left).
As I noted the other day, the time is now for reasonable Republicans to demonstrate that they know crazy when they see it. I think some of them do — Sens. Isaakson and Murkowski have referred to the death panel nonsense as "nuts" and "ginning up fear". The next step is connecting the dots–the town hall mob phenomenon isn’t happening on its own: as I’ve noted, Republican leaders are irresponsibly fanning the flames (see Palin, Gingrich, Boehner). Will McMorris Rodgers, Isaakson, or Murkowski call out leaders in their own party who are spreading lies and encouraging misplaced fury? Elected Republicans have the power to stop this.
We’ll have to see, but I was encouraged by McMorris Rodgers’s statement, and called her office to say so.
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It seems that Republicans in really conservative districts (like mine in South Carolina) are going to stay quiet or even condone the bad behavior, and that those in more moderate areas (like Washington State) are going to start pushing back. Either way, they’re doing what they think their constituents will approve of.
probably true. I wish someone could make them understand that their constituents aren’t always right
They’ll probably get serial death threats, would be my guess.
don’t forget grassley in that mix …
Having had her as my Rep when I lived in Spokane, and having dealt with her on the issues of healthcare reform specifically; I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again… half as crazy as Michele Bachmann, but twice as stupid.
Thanks for mentioning this Nathan. I certainly don’t mean to praise Rep. McMorris Rodgers in any broader sense. I was glad to see she made a start in rejecting some of the ongoing right wing extremism dominating the health care “debate”, but (1) she and other Rs need to go farther and (b) none of this speaks to her position/actions in other contexts