News report:
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Republican congressman from Florida turned to email on Tuesday to call a Democratic colleague from the state “vile, despicable and cowardly” after she called into question his stance on Medicare during the debate over a spending cap and balanced budget bill before the House.
Rep. Allen West, a first-term Republican from south Florida, wasn’t shy about his online outburst. He sent his peppery email to numerous lawmakers as well as his target, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee.
The subject line of the email: “Unprofessional and Inappropriate Sophomoric Behavior from Wasserman Schultz.”
The e-mail said: “Look, Debbie, I understand that after I departed the House floor you directed your floor speech comments directly towards me. Let me make myself perfectly clear, you want a personal fight, I am happy to oblige. You are the most vile, unprofessional and despicable member of the US House of Representatives. If you have something to say to me, stop being a coward and say it to my face, otherwise, shut the heck up.”
Associated Press
July 19, 2011
And what did the virago say that triggered this spray of rabid slaver?
About West’s support of the Republicans’ “Cut, Cap, and Balance” plan, she observed, “The gentleman from Florida, who represents thousands of Medicare beneficiaries, as do I, is supportive of this plan that would increase costs for Medicare beneficiaries. Unbelievable from a member from south Florida.”
And there we have it. This is what’s wrong with the extreme right wing of the Republican party: they are not leaders.
It’s hard to say what they are (at least, while remaining more or less polite). But leaders, they are not.
A personal attack in place of a reasoned argument on issues is what we call an ad hominem fallacy. It is a flaw in logical thinking. It is not leadership.
Unleashing language like “vile, despicable and cowardly” is the abusive behavior of a bully. It is not leadership.
Demanding that a person who disagrees with you, however blandly, sit down and shut up is hectoring and bullying. It is not leadership.
Have Americans become so inured to the loud-mouthed meanness that substitutes for discourse on national talk radio that we actually think this is discourse? It’s not.
It’s a lot of things. It’s rude. It’s stupid. It’s ignorant. It’s vile. It’s unprofessional. It’s despicable. It’s vicious. It’s shallow. But it’s not discourse.
It’s meanness. It’s bullying. It’s intimidation. But it’s not leadership.
No doubt, the man’s a total tool (and certainly not a gentleman). But surely we could balance this kind of wingnut assclownery with equally odious douchbaggery from assorted Democrats 🙂
Quite possibly, Centavos. But…can we actually identify a comparable, documented incident on the part of a person holding high public office?
Ban me if you like but Obamacare (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) truly does gut Medicare to the tune of 30% over the next 3 years and more over the next decade.
The Mrs. Dr. is getting ready to retire over this and the Mrs. has applied for new health insurance that she can afford since my windfall SS of $1386 a month kicked in and she is having difficulty finding a Dr. that will take this insurance.
I see the medical industry going to cash only as the government is NOT going to pay what is a fair reimbursement and insurance companys closing as they can’t compete with the government exchanges and they can’t.
Let’s make the inference that this Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is actually maintainable. How in dogs name can they, the government shove 20 million people into the existing system and expect it to work like clockwork?
A couple years ago when my knees were bothering me I went to a local clinic, was examined by a PA, had an xray. 2 hours later the PA came back and said bone to bone on my right knee and a heartbeat away on my left.
I asked to see an MD and got an appointment about 3 weeks later.
My cost that day – $160. Never went back to see the MD. Too expensive.
I have a friend who is an MD and he has given me some free consultations about my knees, arthritis and general health. and it is helping
3 weeks? Since then I have applied for and gotten approval for priority group 5 of the VA health system.
Obamacare will destroy our medical system in America.
These knuckleheads in congress voted for this 2000 page bill without even reading it.
I know you are an educated lady but you really need to read this story:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703649004575437311393854940.html
I’m going to go out by the pool now and look for Black Widows. I torch them.
http://pahrumptalks.com/images/myworkisdone.jpg
For me that is Obama’s plan.
I saw you had another windstorm and that is unfortunate.
Black Widows. I burnt 5 of them.
Thanks, George. I would never ban you…you’re too interesting! 😀
Finding doctors who will take Medicare gets harder and harder. For that matter, finding decent doctors at all has become extremely difficult. I also have had similar experiences, and I’ll bet there’s not a citizen in this country who hasn’t either had an experience like these or had the same thing (or much worse!) happen to them.
My doctor at the Mayo (whom I’ve been seeing since 19 and ought 68) tells me the Mayo does not take new Medicare patients, and the only way an existing patient who has to go onto Medicare can continue to use the Mayo’s facilities is to come in for an expensive annual physical — which is not covered by Medicare or Medigap.
My Medigap insurer and Medicare itself told me they would electronically pay my provider. Yes. Sure. That’s only if your provider accepts the very low, sub-basement “assignment” Medicare thinks is fair pay. The Mayo does not. Because my “provider” does not accept “assignment,” Medigap and Medicare MAIL me paper checks, which I then have to physically deposit in my bank and then pay out to the Mayo.
Thanks to e-deposit, I no longer have to schlep these things 18 miles round trip to the credit union. But my scanner is excruciatingly slow, the blizzard of little $20 and $40 checks is a damned nuisance, and there’s evidence that some checks have probably been lost in the mail or in the piles of paper that stack up in my house — impossible to know for sure, though, because the paperwork Medicare and the Medigap insurer send out is vast, voluminous, and utterly incomprehensible.
That notwithstanding, I don’t want Medicare to go away BECAUSE my experience with private insurers has been no better and because I don’t believe for one single minute that if I’m forced to go out and buy private insurance, I can afford it or even, for that matter, that anyone will sell it to me.
LOL! Be careful not to torch your toes while you’re hunting widow spiders!
That asshat is just another typical Republican politician spewing venom. Over the years living in this country I have noticed that Democrats have bigger hearts than Republicans.
@ Stephen: I’m not convinced that’s true. Some Republicans honestly do believe that all Americans will be better off if we have few or no taxes at all, and that more people will be employed if all government services were privatized. That some of us think this view is misguided, based on the evidence of history and present practice, does not negate the sincerity of their views or their commitment to the betterment of our country.
The Tea Party does not represent the better spirit of the Republican Party. I would go so far as to say they are not really Republicans. They’re extremists who realized they would get further if they associated themselves with a mainline party rather than forming a third party. And indeed, given the Tea Party’s rather successful penchant for demagoguery, we may be lucky they didn’t form a third party, which would function as a spoiler for both the Democrats and the Republicans. Americans of good will can defeat the Republican Party while it’s dominated by nut cases. A third party of demagogic extremists would split every vote. No election would ever be decisive.
You mean like a State Senator from NJ calling his Republican Governor a punk and that he wanted to punch him in his head?
http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/No-apologies-in-epithet-rich-spat-1453833.php
Both sides seem to suck…but to believe one side is less or more unprofessional is just putting on the blinders.
Very well said, FAM. I know this isn’t a political blog but politics surely influences our ability to hold jobs, so that we do in fact have money to manage. Keep calling ’em out for their bad behavior, whether red or blue. We need reasonable adults in leadership roles, not children like Representative West.
I have to add that, while obnoxious behavior isn’t the sole province of representatives of one party or the other, I pay close attention and there seems to be a difference in the frequency of and level of bullying on display in GOP attacks. Grand Old Party, indeed.
Hah! Good catch, Evan!!!
We should start a Battle of the Churls contest. We could award the Jerk of the Week some sort of prize. How about a wilted rose?
One bunch of roses from Costco would carry us through 18 weeks. Maybe we could get UPS to deliver them to the politicos’ offices in exchange for free publicity on our blogs.
The problem with Congress is THEY are politicians not statesmen.
Statesmen wrote our Constitution and they are rolling over in their graves right now.
Social security has mandated that I pay that tax/fee since my first job at the Kiel Lock Co. in 1966. FDR (a Progressive that signed that into law in 1935) knew it was a Ponzi scheme that we are finding out to be true today.
But, I paid all that money into my retirement fund and you know what?
I want it NOW. I paid for it and I want it now.
@funny
Interesting, Thanks
This dispicable behavior/verbage belongs to the individual spewing it. Please don’t label a whole group for this. Wouldn’t that be called stereotyping? Just my 2 cents….
I think the extremists we’re seeing are individuals. As individuals, they seem to show a pattern of bizarre thinking, naivete about how government works (born as much of dogma as of inexperience), demagoguery, and aggressive bullying to silence opposition and get their way. Taken together, yes: they form a group. But so far I’ve seen nothing about the group that gives me anything other than a negative overall impression. It’s not stereotyping to say that, for instance, Africanized honeybees are aggressive and potentially dangerous; similarly, it’s not stereotyping to say this particular brand of political and ideological extremist is aggressive and potentially dangerous.
Extremists? Do they exist in Congress?
Yes. On both sides of the corral.
We are at a loggerhead here in congress as we have a house with a majority in the republicans favor, a senate with a majority in the democrats favor and a president that will veto anything that he does not like.
So what to we have here? An impasse. One side wants cuts and a balanced budget (just like we have here on the ranch) and the other side wants to spend, spend and spend again even though it didn’t work the first and second time around.
You know that you, me and all us taxpayers lost $1.3 billion on the Chrysler bailout. That’s a major crash and burn but the Obama administration will just dust themselves off and continue on their path of destruction of our economy. Who cares about a billion or so when Trillions are involved.
A billion is a spit in the pond. A trillion is one thousand billions.
So what will they do? Can Harry Ried ferry busloads of illegal Casino workers to help him? No. (I worked in the Vegas casinos long enough to speak some spanish as they were all illegal)
They, the democrats are going to scare us to death.
Doom, destruction and the end of the world is coming if we don’t raise the debt limit.
Now if they keep lying to us and I don’t get my SS drop (which I have paid for) I may get into my Dodge Grand Caravan and head for D.C. with every weapon I own and enough ammo that a SEAL team carries and just go out and refresh the Tree of Liberty with some new blood.
I’m old enough and mean enough just like Clint Eastwood in ‘Grand Torino’ to pull this off.
Holy mackerel, George! Get that brainpan of yours in out of the broiling sun and cool it off in the shade of the Joshua tree! Remember, the pixels have eyeballs. Next thing we know, Big Brother will come after us in his black helicopters. 😯
The Mrs. would never let me do that anyway but it could be a plot for a new Quentin Tarantino movie.
Where a bus load of armed senior citizens take over the capital and cause mayhem, kidnap Obama and force him to eat his peas.
Just a thought.
The Tea Party people are really Libertarians.
I’m not really fond of the republicans any longer.