Get Out The Smelling Salts

by digby

It seems Miss Mellie’s corset is cinched way too tight:

Let us start with Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), who took to the House floor last week to say that the Republican health care reform plan is to have people “die quickly.” It was an over-the-top, outrageous comment that has no place in civil discourse.

But, of course, it was not the first. Let’s review the bidding on House floor statements on this specific subject.

Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Fla.) said the House Democrats’ bill “essentially said to America’s seniors: drop dead.” Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) said on the floor in July that the public insurance option in the Democrats’ plan “is gonna kill people.” Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) suggested the Democrats’ plan might “put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government.” Ouch, ouch and ouch. And let’s not forget a double-extra ouch for Rep. Joe Wilson’s (R-S.C.) outburst on the House floor during President Barack Obama’s speech to the joint session on health care reform.

The House response to Wilson, after he refused to apologize on the floor, was to vote to chastise him formally, a mild punishment that sadly did not get the support of the Republican leadership, although several of the best House Members on the GOP side of the aisle courageously voted in favor. Predictably, Grayson’s bad behavior generated outraged calls from Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his Republican colleagues for Grayson to apologize. Predictably, he refused. And sadly, predictably, the Democratic leaders closed ranks behind Grayson.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) at least did not support or endorse the Grayson remark and called on all miscreants to apologize. She is right — but we deserve more from the Speaker than a response that if one apologizes, all should apologize. It is up to the Speaker to rise above the partisan fray and put her own colleague on the spot, even if it is unfair to let the others off the hook. The only way to stop this nonsense is to create some level of shame for those who perpetrate it.

That’s so true. And if the Republicans actually had any shame it might work. Unfortunately, this is yet another call for Democrats to “take the high road” where they always end up being rolled and left in the gutter.

I am more convinced than ever that Grayson’s move was the right one. First of all, I don’t actually think there is any need for politicians to be delicate little debutantes when they are making floor speeches. Certainly, they don’t need the village to behave like a bunch of spinster chaperones reminding them to watch their manners all the time. Politics requires passionate rhetoric to move people. It always has. Pretending like it’s supposed to be a tea party is selling it short.

However, the patented Republican hissy fit depends upon the asymmetrical application of fiery rhetoric and faux outrage when the other side does the same. And that assymetry has led to some disastrous consequences for the country, from the Impeachment to the Swift Boating to the General Betrayus condemnation, these things serve to cut off debate and require rigid conformity of thought and action. It’s the use of political correctness (which in their case is anything connected to religion and the military) to create a controversy calling the opposition’s fundamental character into question if they deign to oppose the prevailing conventional wisdom.

But the Democrats are starting to use this against the Republicans to good effect, which, hopefully, in the long term will make the Republican hissy fit obsolete. Just today, Debbie Wasserman Schultz did a great job on MSNBC in pointing out that the nasty Republican talking poinst about General McChrystal putting Nancy Pelosi “in her place” were sexist. In the past the Democrats wouldn’t have gone there, preferring instead to focus on the fact that they were being disrespectful of the civilian rule (that we used to hold dear before the Republicans fetishized the military to the extent that any disagreement with a General in the field is deemed traitorous. See: betrayus) They wouldn’t win that argument even though it’s terribly important. They would instead be accused of, you guessed it, failing to support the troops.

So Wasserman Shultz and the Democrats wisely called the Republicans on the sexism, which took it out of the realm of the military and into the realm of nasty Republican politics, where it can be exposed. It’s a Democratic form of the hissy fit, a sort of deflection to put the Republicans on the defensive. And in this case, it’s not even faux outrage — they really are sexist jerks and deserve to be called out for it.

Perhaps someday we will all have polite politics like we had when the gasbags were all coming up and Tip and Ronnie used to put their differences aside at the end of the day and go out whoring and get drunk together. (Or whatever …) But until then, the best we can hope for is to put an end to the manipulative tactics that the right has been using to stifle progress for the past thirty years.

Taking the high road is what got us to this place. What we need now are some smart political tacticians who know how to change the terms of the debate and put an end to this asymmetrical rhetorical war. I’m sorry that gives the Village ladies sewing circle and manners society a fit of the vapors, but the country just doesn’t have the time to waste playing the Republicans’ game anymore.

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