Republicans Senators sound off to National Review Online about a Vice President Biden’s controversial remarks, in which he essentially accused opponents of the president’s jobs bill of having no sympathy for the victims of violent crime, including rape:
Jim DeMint (R., S.C.): “This is pandering to unions, which is essentially everything the Democrats are doing right now. It has very little to do with education or first responders; it has everything to do with just pandering to their political base.”
Orrin Hatch (R., Utah): “We all know it’s a political exercise, rather than a really sincere exercise…It’s the ultimate in class warfare.”
Susan Collins (R., Maine): “I’m a friend of the vice president’s, so even if I disagreed with him, I would not criticize him. But I’ll tell you, what’s frustrating to me is we’re once again going through political theater.”
Kelly Ayotte (R., N.H.): “It’s really just political rhetoric and it’s really unfortunate that he’s bringing the victims of crime into this.”
John Boozman (R., Ark.): “I think the vice president and the president are in campaign mode, their numbers are terrible and they’re desperate, and that’s where all of this stuff comes from. I would hope he would be a little bit more serious and really try and solve some of these problems as opposed to rhetoric like that.”
John McCain (R., Ariz): “I think that the rhetoric that he [Biden] is using is more appropriate for October of 2012 than October of 2011. It doesn’t lead to an environment where we could sit down together and find areas that we can agree on.”
John Barrasso (R., Wyo.): “Two days ago in Philadelphia, Vice President Biden made a number of comments that I believe were over the top, to me, the vice president is attempting to use fear tactics on the American people and really, to me, shows a sign of desperation of the vice president and of this administration because they realize that their policies have failed the American people.”