Paul Gosar is a piece of work. Dana Milbank writes:
Ten days ago, as the world now knows, Gosar, a dentist/insurrectionist, tweeted from his official congressional Twitter account a manipulated anime in which the Gosar figure flies through the air and slashes the Ocasio-Cortez figure across the back of the neck. Blood sprays profusely from the neck wound. Ocasio-Cortez’s lifeless head snaps back. Gosar moves on in the video, swords drawn, to confront President Biden.
Gosar didn’t apologize for the video. He mocked the “faux outrage” and labeled as “laughable” the “shrill accusations that this cartoon is dangerous.”
On the House floor Wednesday afternoon, a defiant Gosar, noting that he took down the video (after about two days and 3 million views), portrayed himself as the victim. “No matter how much the left tries to quiet me, I will continue to speak out,” he vowed.
Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted to censure Gosar. Only two Republicans voted in favour of censure. All the other Republicans, led by Kevin McCarthy, mocked the whole process:
Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) is the one who truly has earned the censure of posterity. In his craven attempt to maintain himself as the House Republican leader, McCarthy showed once again that there is no level of violent, hateful or authoritarian speech that goes too far. By condoning threats and intimidation in the people’s House, he is inviting actual violence — and signing democracy’s death warrant.
McCarthy was outraged — not by the unrepentant Gosar’s homicidal cinematography but by Democrats’ move to reprimand him. Instead of condemning the video, McCarthy said Democrats would “break another precedent” of the House.
McCarthy, on the House floor, mentioned the matter only in passing (“I do not condone violence, and Rep. Gosar had echoed that sentiment”), instead reciting a meandering list of grievances: Proxy voting! The Steele dossier! Afghanistan! He threatened that when speaker he would retaliate by stripping committee assignments from five Democrats over various perceived offenses.
The victim of Gosar’s anime sword, speaking immediately after McCarthy, noted McCarthy’s strained search for equivalent wrongs. “When the Republican leader rose to talk about how there are all of these double standards … not once did he list an example of a member of Congress threatening the life of another,” Ocasio-Cortez pointed out.
“It is a sad day,” she said, “in which a member who leads a political party in the United States of America cannot bring themselves to say that issuing a depiction of murdering a member of Congress is wrong.”
A sad day indeed. We have witnessed the corruption and destruction of a once-proud political party.
Image: usnews.com
4 comments:
Gosar's a right nutter loathed even by his siblings. Here's what his sister Jennifer had to say: "I am absolutely beyond aghast at how much this man has gotten away with. I don't know what he would need to do for any one of those people in quote 'a leadership position' to hold him accountable."
It's common to hear Kevin McCarthy described as weak for failing to discipline the likes of Gosar. That assumes without evidence that McCarthy is inclined to discipline any of the right-wing extremists in the GOP. He's not. Journalists do their audience no favour by pretending that the GOP feels at all bound by the norms that applied even five years ago. I'm glad that Milbank reported this accurately.
Cap
Cap
The Republican Party has gone completely off the rails, Cap. The late Republican presidential candidate Robert Dole correctly suggested that it should be "burned down."
Simply stunning, Owen. The corruption and hypocrisy of the soulless Republican Party is now complete. One can only imagine the heights of outrage they would express if this had been a Democratic 'initiative'.
Republicans feel no shame, Lorne. And that really is stunning.
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