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The Campaign Spot

Election-driven news and views . . . by Jim Geraghty.


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Steny Hoyer on House GOP: ‘They Want to Shoot Every Bullet They Have at the President.’

President Obama, in Tucson, earlier this year: “The loss of these wonderful people should make every one of us strive to be better, to be better in our private lives, to be better friends and neighbors and co-workers and parents. And if, as has been discussed in recent days, their death helps usher in more civility in our public discourse, let us remember it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy — it did not — but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to the challenges of our nation in a way that would make them proud.”

Steny Hoyer, this morning: “I think we’re playing Russian roulette with the nation’s credit-worthiness. Unfortunately, all the chambers seem to be loaded on the House side. They want to shoot every bullet they have at the president.”

Why, it’s almost as if nobody on the Left really cared about violent rhetoric, and the entire brouhaha after the Tucson shootings was to villify Republicans or something.

UPDATE: I’m reminded that Hoyer may just be following his party’s leader on this note: “Obama says the debt ceiling should not “be used as a gun against the heads” of Americans to retain breaks for corporate jet owners or oil and gas companies.”

Tags: Barack Obama, House Republicans, Steny Hoyer

New on The Campaign Spot. . .


COMMENTS   28

EXPAND  

   07/27/11 11:25

Leave it to NRO commentators not to see the difference between "All right, Americans, lock and load!" and "All right, Congress, lock and load!"

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 JEM
   07/27/11 11:28

No leave it to liberal jerks to expect a certain level of discourse from one side and then quickly forget about it when it becomes expedient.

Why won't liberals just admit what they want to do instead of couching it in focused group words that don't reflect their true intent.

That wouldn't be because the public doesn't like those ideas would it?

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   07/27/11 11:35

Partly, JEM, but mostly because they know that as soon as they admit their "ideas" are defunct, then they lose all legitimacy. The funny part is that there is no legitimacy in the first place, just utopian fantasy.

Ahhh, to live in a dreamworld where I can make up the rules as I go along...

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 RTP
   07/27/11 11:56

Because Congressmen aren't Americans?

I think I'll file your comment under, "Distinction without a difference."

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   07/27/11 17:42

File it under "Typical MikeB Nonsense." You know, where Democrats are never wrong and Republicans are never right. Even when they do the same things.

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   07/27/11 11:25

Oh dear me--eliminationist rhetoric!

I think I'm getting the vapors...

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Anthony Francis
   07/27/11 11:29

Silly rabbit, civililty and honest public discourse don't apply to Democrats , only to Republicans.
It's the old time honored trick of silencing Rs, yet allowing Ds to say and do anything they darn well please, with the approval of the fawning MSM.

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Anthony Francis
   07/27/11 11:36

Silly rabbit, the civil and honest discourse carnard applies only to Rs, not to Ds. It's the old time honored rope-a-dope, to keep Rs and conservatives muzzled, yet allowing leftists to say and do anything they darn well please. Hypocrisy, thy name is Democrat.
Of course Hoyer would and could say this, it's open field running for leftists with the fawning approval of the MSM.

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   07/27/11 11:44

The last time I looked, the house was 1/3 of the government. Using my powers of advanced mathematics, I deduce that it is improbable this 1/3 can exert a controlling force over the remaining 2/3.

Everything else stated smacks of atypical politics. Adjust your perception accordingly.

Perhaps the GOP needs to "release every nuclear weapon of Armageddon in their arsenal at the President." if you are going to indulge in typical liberal fear-mongering hyperbole, go for the gusto!

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   07/27/11 11:49

You must not have looked too closely, because the House of Representatives is one of 2 bodies that make up one of the 3 branches of government. Together with the Senate, the House is part of the Congress.

The other 2 branches of government are the Judiciary (Courts), and the Executive (President and all Agencies/Departments).

So, really the House is half of 1/3 of the government.

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John Shaffer
   07/27/11 11:50

Liberals true agendas have to be hidden because, ultimately, they stink. Liberals use rhetoric like raciscm and all their other baloney to mask their true goals of an entitled, socialistic state. Liberals ignore facts unless those facts suit their argument. When facts don't fit they demagogue us and use tactics that they would be in an uproar about if a Republican said the same thing.

Try this exercise. Whenever you see Obama's name is a headline or sentence, replace it with Bush. Think how bad the media and the left would crucify the man.

The progessive left is lying to us all and too many Americans are listening blindly.

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   07/27/11 11:50

Representative Hoyer spoke very irresponsibly. He should be reprimanded by both parties for suggesting a violent metaphor--in light of gun tragedies on the rise.

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   07/27/11 11:52

Ah, more sophistry from the Democrats. Obama throws a bomb at the House Republicans every single day, and yet his minions whine when he is criticized. I've never seen a more sensitive, thin-skinned politician. He couldn't carry Reagan's jockstrap. If BHO cannot take the heat, he should get out of the kitchen.

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   07/27/11 11:57

My, my , my, the times they are a-changin'.

Wasn't it just a few days ago liberals were taking conservatives to task for "rhetoric" that supposedly "contributed" to a nutcase bombing and shooting people in Norway?

Now that it's a liberal dem making violent, inflammatory statements...(crickets chirping)

(This is too funny. The captcha for this post was "jiminy cricket". I kid you not.)

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msfl
   07/27/11 12:08

These comments are front page news (Yawn) this has been going on for 2 years with the Dems. Pushing Grandma off a cliff? Repubs putting a gun to our heads. The liberals never stop with this. Is that a sign that the libs want the conservatives to "stick to their guns"? After all Obama made it clear during the election, that we are just idiots clinging to our God and guns.

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   07/27/11 12:20

The Elimination of Charitable Deductions is a Virtual Nationalization of Charitable Services and an Assault on the Country’s Conservative Infrastructure.

The elimination of the “Charitable Tax Deduction” proposed by Democrats is a clear assault on the conservative institutions that form the backbone of the country’s conservative culture and infrastructure.

This is a virtual nationalization of charitable services by weakening those institutions able to compete with the government providing services to the poor and the downtrodden, thus increasing the “need” for government politically motivated funding. It is well known that donors do not tend to favor left-wing or radical institutions with any economic support which mostly depend of public funding. By taking away the funding they diminish the capacity of these organizations to influence the culture of liberty, life and self-reliance in any manner.

It is well known that one of the tenets of the left includes dismantling the cultural infrastructure of the right. It is of no concern to them that numerous charitable institutions that cater privately to the destitute and the challenged provide services to millions of Americans. These services will have to be provided by the government with no real savings in the process given the fact that government tends to be extremely inefficient and bureaucratic providing them, but the objective of taking away from the private sector these services increasing the government monopoly of the same would have been achieved.

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   07/27/11 16:24

Guys, this isn't so complicated. It's a situational thing.

I would be run out of town for using the N word in casual conversation. Not so others.

I would be horrified by certain ethnic jokes if you told them to me. On the other hand, I could tell those jokes to you.

A candidate should not tell an audience of supporters to "lock and load." But a congressman can say he feels like Congress has pointed a gun at the President's head.

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Matt B
   07/27/11 16:57

Oh, gee, okay MikeB, if you say so.

I feel a lot better now, knowing that ETHICS are all about the SITUATION.

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JB in MS
   07/27/11 17:25

"Guys, this isn't so complicated. It's a situational thing."

Right! - and the situation is that if a conservative uses the metaphors he will be vilified by the national press corpse and accused of all sorts of fictional responsibility for the reprehensible acts of others, but if a liberal uses the same metaphor, it's just a warm, fuzzy, familiar, harmless cliche'.

It's long past time to shoot down this double-standard, to blow it up, completely napalm it. It deserves a mercy shot to its cerebral cortex, to be killed, some sort of "final solution" to slice this explosive canard from the vernacular...

Umm, sorry. Sure hope I didnt inspire anyone to violence there. Gotta go, my therapist is waiting, and I'm past-due for my meds.

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   07/27/11 17:12

Does anyone remember this? Years ago the inimitable Republican senator Alan Simpson compared President Bill Clinton to a mountain sheep being shot at by (Republican) hunters, scrambling frantically from crag to crag and somehow surviving as his world crumbled around him from the Monica Lewinski scandal, impeachment, etc. It was hilarious then (to this Democrat) and it's still hilarious. Let's calm down, everyone.

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