Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) hoisted on her own petard

[magellan01]

@John_Stamos_Left_Ear

This is actually more of a high five to MSNBC reporter Thomas Roberts for doing something members of the media seem reluctant to do, dare they insult the sensibilities of a nation who wants their media to be free of bias (well, unless they watch Fox News). But he asked a hard question of a politician recently. Good on him.

But there’s not a “Thumbs up” thread around here, so instead I’ll marvel at how thoroughly one of my least favorite politicians, Marsha Blackburn, got taken to the woodshed in this interview. Because Roberts was able to use her own words to immediately stop her attempts to turn the question around on the interviewer.

The question seems loaded, but it’s really not unfair as the rest of the interview will show, just sensationalistically worded:

The response was at first in the vein of a how dare you ask that question whine followed by a telling deflection: “We didn’t want a government shutdown.”

This allowed the intrepid investigator to hold her feet to the fire in a manner the media needs to do a lot more: With her own words.

Yes. Yes she did. To quote noted conservative scholar Rick Perry: “Oops.”

Which means that she does, in fact, hate Obamacare more than she loves America. Fuck her for that and fuck her a second time for not even having the courage of her convictions, as lame as they may be.

Wow. You really are a dumb-dumb.

[Grrr]

I’m sorry but I fucking love this woman. (Love to hate her that is).

She’s so deliciously evil. She’s like a character that walked right off the set of GCB.
“My goodness. Would you listen to yourself? Why I do declare, you’re going to give me the vapors.”

LOL, she’s so transparent.

[John_Stamos_Left_Ear]

@magellan01

Wow. You really are a dumb-dumb.

no u

[Zakalwe]

@magellan01

Wow. You really are a dumb-dumb.

@John_Stamos_Left_Ear

no u

If I have to pull this forum off to the side of the road, you two are NOT going to be happy!

[John_Stamos_Left_Ear]

@lance_strongarm

So how is your argument anywhere near a true equivalency?

What argument am I making, exactly?

[The_Second_Stone]

Questioning even an idiot’s patriotism is despicable.

[Frostillicus]

“Despite what your teleprompter may tell you, our success is not a result of your failed policies.

This in itself makes me refuse to take anything this woman says seriously. Fucking cunt.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@The_Second_Stone

Questioning even an idiot’s patriotism is despicable.

What? Why? Is being unpatriotic like being a rapist or something?

If someone’s not patriotic, that’s a data point. There are plenty of good reasons to be unpatriotic, alongside bad reasons for it.

If you’re suggesting it’s despicable to make the accusation in lieu of raising relevant policy objections, I can get behind that as part of a more general Condemnations of ad hominems.

[BigT]

@Eonwe

Ultimately, shutting down the government and letting the country default does not mean that one does not love America, and implying that it does is rhetoric of the worst kind. There is no correlation between an un-measurable and arbitrary “love of country” and one’s position on what is happening in government right now.

I think the implication is perfectly fair. Everyone knew the shutdown wouldn’t work. There was no chance the ACA was going to be stopped. The only two options were that some people would cave or the country would be severely damaged.

In other words, if you supported the shutdown, you put fighting against the legislation you didn’t support over the health of our country. And I’m perfectly fine with saying that means you “don’t love your country,” especially against the party that made loving America such a big deal.

I only don’t support the rhetoric, as this type of reasoning needs to be made explicit, precisely for the reasons stated in this thread.

And, of course, even though I support the idea behind the rhetoric, the OP was still stupid, as she wasn’t in any way burned by what happened. Her response, while not eloquently stated, was exactly correct. She didn’t support the shutdown, so there is no argument that she puts country above stopping Obamacare, and the clip was a non-sequitur. I’d be flustered trying to respond to such idiocy, too.

[Bryan_Ekers]

There’s nothing wrong with questioning someone’s patriotism if you have a good reason to do so, i.e. their actions suggest a greater love of a group or organization than of the country overall.

Of course, it’s such a soft, amorphous concept that using it as attack or defense is pretty much useless except as an emotional trigger.

[elucidator]

“Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.”

• Mark Twain

[John_Stamos_Left_Ear]

Even David Gregory got in on the hoisting…

Gregory allowed the discussion to proceed despite some terse exchanges, but said he had to step in when Blackburn claimed that scientists lack sufficient evidence to say that carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere have had a significant environmental impact.

“Well, hold on, I just have to interrupt you,” Gregory said. “I’m sorry, congresswoman, let me just interrupt you, because it’s not – you can pick out particular skeptics, but you can’t really say, can you, that the hundreds of scientists around the world who have looked at this have gotten together and conspired to manipulate data?”

The representative argued that “there is not consensus” that greenhouse gas emissions have had a major effect on global warming.

“But there is consensus,” Gregory responded. “Within the scientific community, there is consensus.”

Sorry, Congresswoman, I Just Have To Interrupt You

[MaxTheVool]

@BigT

I think the implication is perfectly fair. Everyone knew the shutdown wouldn’t work. There was no chance the ACA was going to be stopped. The only two options were that some people would cave or the country would be severely damaged.

Much as I think all the Republicans who did any of those things were utterly wrong, I don’t think those actions prove that they were unpatriotic. Heck, doing far far worse things like accepting bribes while in office doesn’t necessarily make you unpatriotic, although it certainly makes you imperfect (and a host of other non-flattering adjectives).

Even if we all agreed about what the immediate result of various actions would be (and we don’t), It’s not necessarily unpatriotic to take an action which will make the country worse in the short run if you honestly believe that it will make the country better off in the long run. Now there are an infinite number of slippery slopes and ethical quagmires where you can convince yourself that the best thing for the country in the long run is for your party to win, therefore it is acceptable to do anything in the short term, yada yada yada. But the fact that the whole issue is a legitimately difficult and complicated one doesn’t mean that you can fairly call anyone who (for instance) joined one of 40+ doomed protest votes against ACA “unpatriotic”.
For instance, there are any number of the things that Bush did which I disagreed with. What if a Democratic congressman or senator had decided “this course action is wrong” and thrown himself into a futile one-person crusade to stop that action, even though it was 100% clear that all they were going to end up doing was gumming up the works of government for a week. Would that protest have been unpatriotic?

[Sitnam]

If ‘gumming up the works for a week’ was what was going on no one here would claim the fucksticks responsible for the shutdown was unpatriotic.

That’s not the case so your analogy is irrelevant.