In England, Parliament often takes on the form of professional wrestling, with members loudly decrying one another with nothing sans public opinion to monitor what they say or how they say it.
But in America, we’re assured, we have a greater sense of political decorum.
That “decorum” was “shockingly” violated when Rep. Joe Wilson blurted out, “You lie!” during a speech that President Obama called Congress into session to make. It didn’t matter that Joe Wilson was actually RIGHT when he said Obama was lying. As the Washington Examiner pointed out, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office declared:
“Under H.R. 3200, a ‘Health Insurance Exchange’ would begin operation in 2013 and would offer private plans alongside a public option…H.R. 3200 does not contain any restrictions on noncitzens—whether legally or illegally present, or in the United States temporarily or permanently—participating in the Exchange.”
No, it was beside the point that Joe Wilson was right and Obama really WAS lying. What mattered was that decorum had been violated.
And then there was somthing else that Nancy Pelosi made – inspired by the “hateful remark” made by Joe Wilson – that further ratcheted up the debate:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi: “I have concerns about some of the language that is being used because I saw … I saw this myself in the late ’70s in San Francisco,” Pelosi said, choking up and with tears forming in her eyes. “This kind of rhetoric is just, is really frightening and it created a climate in which we, violence took place and … I wish that we would all, again, curb our enthusiasm in some of the statements that are made.”
(Youtube here).
Nancy Pelosi, as I point out here, cried her alligator tears to demonize Wilson and by extension Republicans, all the while pointing out invented facts. Among other things, the violence that she alluded to was committed by a career DEMOCRAT, and it didn’t have anything to do with “rhetoric.” Rather, Harvey Milk and George Moscone were murdered by a San Francisco District 8 Democrat official named Dan White because Milk and Moscone had refused to reappoint him.
So Nancy Pelosi came out and lied about and then demagogued a historical event as a ploy to demonize Republicans and anything they might say in opposition to the liberal agenda. It was a vile thing for her to do.
The fact of the matter was that Joe Wilson was wrong in his outburst, and he apologized both personally and in a letter.
Didn’t matter. Nancy Pelosi’s House censured him anyway, taking a day of the people’s time to do it. “Decorum,” remember.
So with all that as backdrop, let’s proceed to the latest bit of “This kind of rhetoric” that “is just, is really frightening” and which could easily create “a climate in which … violence” could take place.
Representative Alan Grayson, Democrat-Florida, came to the same House floor that Joe Wilson had sat on, and said:
“It’s my duty and pride tonight to be able to announce exactly what the Republicans plan to do for health care in America… It’s a very simple plan. Here it is. The Republican health care plan for America: ‘don’t get sick.’ If you have insurance don’t get sick, if you don’t have insurance, don’t get sick; if you’re sick, don’t get sick. Just don’t get sick. … If you do get sick America, the Republican health care plan is this: ‘die quickly.'”
(Youtube here).
It was utterly outrageous. For two reasons. Number one, the Republicans – who have submitted more than three dozen health care reform bills and who actually held them over their head and waved them during the Obama speech – currently have a major bill to reform health bill available to any who would just look at it. It is just a lie that amounts to rank demagoguery to claim that Republicans don’t have a plan beyond, “don’t get sick” and “die quickly.” Number two, the polls are crystal clear: senior citizens – who presumably would not want to rely on a plan to “not get sick” and then to “die quickly” – are opposed to the Democrats’ plan by a nearly 2-1 margin. From Rasmussen:
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% are opposed to the plan.
Senior citizens are less supportive of the plan than younger voters. In the latest survey, just 33% of seniors favor the plan while 59% are opposed. The intensity gap among seniors is significant. Only 16% of the over-65 crowd Strongly Favors the legislation while 46% are Strongly Opposed.
So according to Alan Grayson, not only Republicans, but nearly two out of every three seniors who basically support the Republican position on health care, want seniors to die. Grayson’s remark was both insane and immoral.
Republicans called upon Alan Grayson to do what Joe Wilson had done (RIGHT AWAY) and apologize for his statement. Here’s what they got:
Republicans got an apology of sorts from Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson Wednesday – it just wasn’t the one they wanted.
Instead of saying he was sorry about accusing Republicans of wanting people to “die quickly,” he gave an apology “to the dead.”
“I would like to apologize,” he said. “I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven’t voted sooner to end this holocaust in America.”
And thus a man representing the party that has murdered nearly 50 million human beings before they could even enjoy being born compares Republicans to Adolf Hitler and their actions to the murder of six million Jews.
That same article, for what it’s worth, also further points out what a patholigical liar Grayson is:
Grayson provided the contretemps of the day on Capitol Hill, and even one of his party’s leaders, Democratic Caucus Chairman John B. Larson of Connecticut, at one point publicly called on him to apologize for Tuesday night’s speech.
“I wouldn’t have used the words that Mr. Grayson has,” Larson said. “I would encourage Alan to apologize.”
Later, Grayson contested whether Larson really meant what he said.
“I spoke to him and he did not ask me to apologize,” Grayson offered.
He also claimed he hadn’t said “Republicans want you to die quickly” – until a reporter read his words back to him.
Not only did Grayson say “Republicans want you to die quickly”; he literally had the words written down on a giant card which he displayed on an easel as he spoke. That’s how much of a twisted lying weasel this guy is.
And do the Democrats – who as we now know so value decorum – call upon Alan Grayson to first apologize and then shut his lying mouth?
Absolutely not.
Did the Democrats – who literally shed alligator tears decrying the hateful rhetoric – demand that one of their own cease and desist from hateful rhetoric?
Absolutely not.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi had this to say to defend the man who said that Republicans want seniors to die (with said Republicans supported by 59% of seniors) and that the Republicans had created a holocaust of people dying without health care:
“We have to have a debate that is not distracted from… Apparently Republicans are holding Democrats to a higher level than they are holding their own members,” she said, referring to floor comments by some Republicans who have said Democratic health care reforms would lead to higher deaths among seniors.
“There’s no more reason for Mr. Grayson to apologize… If anybody’s going to apologize everybody should apologize,” Pelosi said at her weekly press conference.
Well again, Nancy Pelosi, in defending Grayson, has to lie to do it. Republicans aren’t trying to hold Democrats to a “higher standard”:
Wilson’s conduct was denounced by Democratic and Republican lawmakers. Senator John McCain of Arizona, Obama’s Republican opponent in the 2008 presidential race, called Wilson’s outburst “totally disrespectful.”
“He should apologize,” McCain said in an interview on CNN.
Many other Republicans called for Wilson to apologize, including his Republican House leadership. And Joe Wilson DID apologize.
“I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the president’s remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health-care bill,” Wilson said in a statement. “While I disagree with the president’s statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable.”
So it’s a lie that Republicans are trying to hold Democrats to a “higher standard.” Rather, they are trying to hold Democrats to the VERY SAME standard Republicans had held for themselves, and in fact the VERY SAME STANDARD THAT DEMOCRATS HAD JUST HELD REPUBLICANS TO.
Note to Nancy Pelosi and her Democrat minions: please don’t get so damn hoity toity with your self righteous outrage when it suits you, only to show what blatant hypocrites you are the very next moment when it suits you. Your hypocrisy shines through like brilliant glittering diamonds.
As vile, hateful, and dishonest as Alan Grayson’s remarks have been, that isn’t where the real outrage is. No, the real outrage is the complete dishonesty and the rabid demagoguery of the Democrat leadership – especially as epitomized in Nancy Pelosi.
When a party demands that one party be held accountable to violations to “decorum,” and then cynically violates that very same decorum with far more loathsome and dishonest outbursts, it is past time to remove that party from power.