Alan Grayson’s Joe Wilson moment
Was the Florida Democrat’s 'Republicans want you to die quickly' line worse than Wilson’s 'You lie!'?
Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida
(Public Domain)
First there was Rep. Joe Wilson’s “famous ‘You lie!’ outburst,” said the Albany, Ga., Herald in an editorial. Now we have Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) saying that “the Republicans want you to die quickly if you get sick” (watch Grayson’s speech). Seriously, “are there any adults in the House?” Grayson’s “obnoxious” provocation was “every bit as boorish, classless, and childish as Wilson’s was”—and to top it off, Grayson voted to censure Wilson.
“I’m not going to defend” Grayson’s “over-the-top comments,” said Josh Marshall in Talking Points Memo. But “gimme a break”—how is this a “controversy when half the Republican elected officials in the country have been saying for the last couple months, as a statement of purported fact, that the Democrats want to institute ‘death panels’ that will euthanize or deny care” to the elderly and infirm?
That’s a pretty good description of the “euthanasia” system Grayson and his fellow Democrats are championing, said Erick Erickson in RedState. And instead of apologizing for his attack on the GOP, Grayson continued his “descent into insanity,” apologizing to the Americans who died because of “this ‘holocaust’ in health care.” That just “cheapens” the Holocaust (watch Grayson’s apology speech).
The holocaust reference may have been “gratuitous and unnecessary,” said John Nichols in The Nation, but the real reason “Washington Republicans are horrified, horrified, horrified” by Grayson’s “bluntness” is that he’s a Democrat who actually takes the health-care fight “seriously enough to try and win it.”
Define “win,” said Daniel Libit in Politico. In a 24-hour period we had Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) calling President Obama an “enemy of humanity,” Grayson’s “die quickly” salvo, and Republican National Committee head Michael Steele calling Tom Friedman a “nut job” for worrying that all this “hot talk” will lead to violence. Our “arms race of incendiary rhetoric” is “quickly reaching the point of mutually assured destruction.”
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30 Comments
Posted by Johnny Reb, Thursday, October 1, 2009, 9:35 am It's a fun statement but the truth is that it applies to ALL politicians. ALL of them. Dems have control of the House, Senate and White House. So what's stopping them? There is no opposition except their own pockets. Ain't an elected official alive that doesn't owe their career at least to some degree to the health care lobby. Keeping people sick is a big business in America, that's why we'll never have universal health care.
Posted by Gene, Thursday, October 1, 2009, 9:36 am I don't see a problem with what Rep. Grayson is saying. He is rightly pointing out that many many people are dying because the insurance companies are deciding who lives and dies. Yet the Republicans who oppose him accuse the government of managing health care and determining who will live. Get it through your heads, insurance companies are not in business to give you health care. They are in business to make money, giving you a false sense of security thinking you are covered, when in fact just when you need help they will deny coverage.
Posted by bruce, Thursday, October 1, 2009, 10:25 am Gene: You don'ttrust the insurance companies to give you good coverage and you shouldn't. YOU should read the policy you are paying for and decide FOR YOURSELF whether it is worth purchasing!If you live on the premise that ' the insurance execs don't care enough to take care of me properly', what the HELL do you think the politicos will do? They've got jets to fly and votes to by and a deficit in EVERY OTHER SOCIAL PROGRAM they've set up to take care of lazy slobs like you. GET UYP OFF YOUR DUFF AND TAKE SOME RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOURSELF!!!
Posted by steve, Thursday, October 1, 2009, 10:38 am Bruce. First, spell check your posts before you post them, you look like an idiot. Second, take you 2nd ammendment rights, take your gun, load it, and shoot yourself.
Posted by Lee Cronbach, Thursday, October 1, 2009, 11:12 am There is no real parallel between Wilson's and Grayson's remarks.Wilson interrupted a televised speech with heckling Graysonjust matched the 'death panel' rhetoric with his 'die quickly'remark and so far, not one Republican that I know of has apologizedfor any of the 'death panel' b.s.
Posted by Michael, Thursday, October 1, 2009, 11:14 am Nothing like that slob Wilson, he did not interrupt anyone and break protocol. What he said is true, the GOP and Dems like Baucus dont give a rats a about the public, they are just shilling for big medical.
Posted by Aaron, Thursday, October 1, 2009, 11:56 am The point you all are missing is that no one knows if what Joe Wilson said Joe Wilson was wrong or not. You can look at it either way. Obama did lie or he didn't. There is no health care bill so we don't know what is in it or is not in it. He was out of line to yell out in the joint session, that's clear. And if his outburst keeps illegal aliens from getting MORE free health care than they already get today, then it was well worth it.
Posted by brandig, Thursday, October 1, 2009, 11:57 am Steve, what is it about responsibility that scares you so much as to ask someone to kill themself for bringing it up? And spell check your own posts.We've long been voting in substandard leaders. That's what happens when a country, founded on freedom and requiring leaders that protect freedom, starts electing leaders that want not to protect our freedom but to control us, instead. Hence, we we get the kind of people that we have today. It's only gotten worse for a century.
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