How Low Democrats Can Go
Democrats Throw “Civility” to the Wind in a Rhetorical Race to the Bottom
- Gaffe-prone Democrat attack dog Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Rep. Jim Clyburn ironically held a press conference Wednesday accusing House Republicans of not being “civil” in the ongoing debt debate, perhaps following-up on a short-lived earlier call from President Obama to restore a “civil and honest” public discourse.
- That same day Wasserman Schultz and her fellow Democrats ignored their own call for civility and took a decidedly uncivil tone in a series of rants that conjured up violent imagery.
- Wasserman Schultz’ uncivil hypocrisy is not new. Many of her and her fellow Democrats’ statements belong in the rhetorical Hall of Shame.
Gaffe-prone Democrat attack dog Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Rep. Jim Clyburn ironically held a press conference Wednesday accusing House Republicans of not being “civil” in the ongoing debt debate, perhaps following-up on a short-lived earlier call from President Obama to restore a “civil and honest” public discourse:
REP. JIM CLYBURN (D-SC): “I WOULD HOPE THAT CIVILITY WOULD ONCE AGAIN BE PART OF THE DISCOURSE HERE.” (Remarks from Rep. Jim Clyburn, “DNC Press Conference on GOP Tactics in Debt Debate,” YouTube, 7/27/2011)
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: GOP TRYING TO “INCITE” “VITRIOL AND NEGATIVE TONE.” (Michael O’Brien, “Dem Leaders: GOP Using ‘Vitriol’ in Debt Debate by Showing Affleck Clip,” The Hill, 7/27/2011)
OBAMA IN TUCSON SPEECH: “… ONLY A MORE CIVIL AND HONEST PUBLIC DISCOURSE CAN HELP US FACE UP TO THE CHALLENGES OF OUR NATION …”(President Barack Obama, “Full Speech: Obama Urges Civility at Tucson Memorial,” PBS’s News Hour, 1/12/2011)
OBAMA AT HOUSE GOP RETREAT, JAN 2010: “That’s why I say if we’re going to frame these debates in ways that allow us to solve them, then we can’t start off by figuring out, A, who’s to blame; B, how can we make the American people afraid of the other side.” (President Barack Obama, “Remarks By President at GOP House Issues Conference”, The White House, 1/29/10)
Wasserman Schultz must have forgotten her call for “civility” mere hours later when she accused Republicans of wanting to impose a “dictatorship.” Democrat Whip Steny Hoyer must not have heard the renewed call for “civility” either that morning when he said Republicans “want to shoot every bullet they have at the president.” Then again, both Democrats may be taking their lead from the president, who charged Republicans with using the debt ceiling as “a gun against the heads of the American people”:
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: “Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), chair of the Democratic National Committee, said Wednesday that House Republicans are trying to impose ‘dictatorship’ through their tactics in the debt-ceiling negotiations.” (Mike Allen, “DNC: GOP Seeks ‘Dictatorship,'” Politico, 7/27/2011)
DEMOCRAT WHIP STENY HOYER: REPUBLICANS “WANT TO SHOOT EVERY BULLET THEY HAVE AT THE PRESIDENT.” (Jim Geraghty, “Steny Hoyer on House GOP: “They Want to Shoot Every Bullet They Have at the President,” National Review, 7/27/2011)
OBAMA: GOP USING DEBT CEILING AS “A GUN AGAINST THE HEADS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE TO EXTRACT TAX BREAKS FOR CORPORATE JET OWNERS.” (“Remarks by the President in Twitter Town Hall,” The White House, 7/6/2011)
RECENT DEMOCRAT CAUCUS GUEST AND FORMER OBAMA ADVISOR VAN JONES: “People are finally waking up. … Most Americans were enjoying their summer vacations, frankly, and didn’t really realize that these hostage takers were, had a gun to the head of 310 million people saying if you don’t do everything we say the way we say it we’re going to blow the American dream away. We’re going to blow a hole in your economy.” (Remarks from Van Jones,MSNBC’s “Jansing and Co.”, 7/27/2011)
Wasserman Schultz’ uncivil hypocrisy is not new. Her own record of inflammatory rants led the Orlando Sentinel to suggest she is “embarrassing her party and constituents” and to urge her to “stop already.” Let’s review Democrats’ rhetorical Hall of Shame:
ORLANDO SENTINEL TO DWS: STOP “EMBARRASSING” YOUR PARTY: “Her comments (GOP Medicare plan is throwing seniors “to the wolves”) and gaffes (DWS drives an Infiniti but huffed “we would be driving foreign cars” if anti-bailout GOP had its way) are embarrassing her party and her constituents. Stop already.” (Editorial, “Our Weekly Champ & Chump,” Orlando Sentinel, 6/4/2011)
DNC CHAIR: GOP “LITERALLY” WANTS TO “DRAG US ALL THE WAY BACK TO JIM CROW”: “…[N]ow you have the Republicans, who want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws and literally – and very transparently – block access to the polls to voters who are more likely to vote Democratic candidates than Republican candidates. And it’s nothing short of that blatant.” (Ben Smith, “DWS: GOP Wants to Bring Back ‘Jim Crow’,” Politico, 6/6/2011)
GOP MEDICARE PLAN “LITERALLY A DEATH TRAP FOR SENIORS”: “This plan would literally be a death trap for seniors.” (“New DNC Chief: GOP Budget Proposal “A Death Trap for Seniors,” Fox News, 4/7/2011)
WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ DOUBLES DOWN ON COMMENT THAT GOP BUDGET IS A “DEATH TRAP FOR SENIORS”: “Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, the Florida congresswoman tapped by President Obama to lead the DNC, said she stood by her characterization of Republicans’ 2012 budget as a ‘death trap’ for seniors.
“When pressed on whether she intended to say that the GOP budget put seniors’ lives at risk, Wasserman Schultz doubled down.
” ‘That’s exactly what I’m suggesting,’ she said during an appearance on CNN.”(Michael O’Brien, “New DNC Chief: GOP Budget Endangers Senior Citizens’ Lives,” The Hill, 4/14/2011)
REPUBLICANS ENGAGED IN “A WAR ON WOMEN”: ” ‘So if you look on balance at the entire record, their record is anti-women, their record is a war on women and it’s a priority for them,’ said Wasserman Shultz.” (Paul Bedard, “New DNC Boss Calls GOP ‘Anti-Women’,” U.S. News and World Report, 5/26/2011)
FACTCHECK.ORG: DNC CHAIR “THROWS TRUTH TO THE WOLVES”, ACCUSATIONS ABOUT MEDICARE PLAN “SIMPLY WRONG”: “She is simply wrong to say that the GOP plan would allow insurance companies to ‘throw you to the wolves and allow insurance companies to deny you coverage and drop you for preexisting conditions.'” (“DNC Chair Throws Truth to the Wolves,” FactCheck.org, 5/31/2011)
DNC CHAIR SAID GOP CANDIDATES OPPOSE AMERICAN CARS, BUT SHE DOESN’T DRIVE ONE: ” ‘If it were up to the candidates for president on the Republican side, we would be driving foreign cars; they would have let the auto industry in America go down the tubes,’ she said at a breakfast for reporters organized by The Christian Science Monitor. But according to Florida motor vehicle records, the Wasserman Schultz household owns a 2010 Infiniti FX35, a Japanese car whose parent company is Nissan, another Japanese company. The car appears to be hers, since its license plate includes her initials.”(Michael O’Brien, “DNC chairwoman doesn’t drive American,” The Hill’s “Briefing Room” blog, 5/26/2011)
OBAMA, APRIL 13, 2011: GOP WILL HARM “SOMEONE’S GRANDPARENTS,” “POOR CHILDREN,” “CHILDREN WITH AUTISM OR DOWN’S SYNDROME”:“One vision has been championed by Republicans in the House of Representatives and embraced by several of their party’s presidential candidates…This is a vision that says up to 50 million Americans have to lose their health insurance in order for us to reduce the deficit. And who are those 50 million Americans? Many are someone’s grandparents who wouldn’t be able afford nursing home care without Medicaid. Many are poor children. Some are middle-class families who have children with autism or Down’s syndrome. Some are kids with disabilities so severe that they require 24-hour care. These are the Americans we’d be telling to fend for themselves.” (Jake Tapper, “Throw Grandma From the Train,” ABC News’s Political Punch, 4/13/2011)
OBAMA DOUBLES DOWN: I’M “DESCRIBING” GOP NOT “CRITIQU[ING].”“Look if you look at my speech yesterday it was not so much a critique of what the House Republicans have proposed as it was a description of what they’ve proposed.” (George Stephanopoulos, “Exclusive Interview with Obama: Video and Part One of Transcript,” ABC News, 4/14/2011)
NANCY PELOSI SAYS GOP FUNDING PLAN A “WAR ON WOMEN”: “There is ‘a war on women,’ House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says, and it’s being led by her own colleagues on the other side of the aisle in Congress.” (Jennifer Epstein, “Nancy Pelosi Calls GOP Budget ‘A War on Women,'” Politico, 4/8/2011)
DC DELEGATE ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON: REPUBLICANS “BOMBING INNOCENT CIVILIANS”: “‘We are absolutely outraged. This is the functional equivalent of bombing innocent civilians,’ she said.” (“Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton Upset Over Treatment of DC During Shutdown Resolution Talks,” My FOX DC, 4/8/2011)
REP. LOUISE SLAUGHTER (D-NY) COMPARES GOP TO NAZIS, SAYS “THEY’RE HERE TO KILL WOMEN”: “In ’94 people were elected simply to come here to kill the National Endowment for the Arts. Now they’re here to kill women. … It’ssort of like an old German Nazi movie.” (Dan Joseph, “Rep. Louise Slaughter: GOP Freshmen Came to Washington ‘To Kill Women’,” CNS News, 4/7/2011)
MORE PELOSI: “6 MILLION SENIORS” WILL BE “DEPRIVED OF MEALS”: “In one of the bills before us, 6 million seniors are deprived of meals — homebound seniors are deprived of meals. People ask us to find our common ground, the middle ground. Is middle ground 3 million seniors not receiving meals? I don’t think so. We’ve got to take this conversation from a debate about numbers and dollar figures and finding middle ground there to the higher ground of national values. I don’t think the American people want any one of those 6 million people to lose their meals or the children who are being thrown off of Head Start and the rest of it.” (Glen Kessler, “Nancy Pelosi’s Absurd Math on Senior Citizens Losing their Meals,” The Washington Post, 4/7/2011)