Patriots, boy scouts and bad apples praying together for armed revolution
by digby
“I am very quick in calling American citizens ‘patriots,’” [Nevada senator Dean] Heller said in an interview. “Maybe in this case, too quick.”
Heller added: “I want to make it very clear that I never called Bundy a patriot. And I believe Bundy should have been paying those fees.”
You’d think he could have made that clear earlier. I don’t think he did:
“What Sen. Reid may call domestic terrorists, I call patriots,” he said during the April 18 televised interview. “We have a very different view on this.”
Asked about those comments Tuesday, Heller noted that there were Boy Scouts at the Bundy protests, while scores of supporters were singing the national anthem, delivering the pledge of allegiance and praying.
“I don’t think Occupy Wall Street [activists] were doing the same thing when they were having their protests,” he said.
While Heller said about “80 percent” of the protesters were “people I called patriots,” he added that there were “some bad apples in there, bad actors, no doubt.”
Actually Occupy Wall Street was generally very peaceful. And as far as I know, it didn’t feature even one “patriot” packing heat and threatening to shoot officers of the law or push women in the front of crowds so the world could see them shot on television. But I guess there are bad apples and then there are bad apples.
I wonder what he thinks of these fine “patriots”:
Heller’s comments come as the senior Nevada senator, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has referred to Bundy’s supporters as “domestic terrorists,” has been the subject of threats at his home, prompting the U.S. Capitol Police to investigate the matter. Reid’s security detail has been increased, sources said, after he called Bundy a “hateful racist” last week.
“Each day that goes by it’s hard for me to comprehend how ugly, vile, vulgar and threatening people are, sending letters to my home and making other threats,” Reid, a Democrat, told reporters Tuesday. “So I don’t know who’s mad at me, but it’s a long list I guess.”
Reid added: “What also bothers me is virtually every one of these horrible things they send, they cite scripture. They cite something out of the Bible. Now try that one on.”
Par for the course. A bigger bunch of violent fruitcakes you’ve never seen.
By the way, I saw a woman on Fox News drawing a comparison between Bundy and Cindy Sheehan saying that her call to impeach President Bush was equivalent to Bundy refusing to pay his fees. That means that the 1998 Republican House was equally lawless, correct? More, actually. They did it.
.