Rachel has been doing a great job of showing what liars Republicans really are:
The Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, responded to the president‘s speech on health reform today with this whopper of his own.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), MINORITY LEADER: Virtually, every time
reconciliation has been used, the results were bipartisan support.
MADDOW: “Bipartisan support,” he says, virtually every time—virtually every time.
Except for this time, when it was a 51-50 party line vote, or that other time when it was a 50-49 party line vote, or that other time when it was a 52-47 party line vote.
You know, actually, if you look at the past two decades of using reconciliation in the United States Congress—if you look at the last two decades, the majority of times it has been used, it has been used for party line votes. So, Mitch McConnell told a lie about that today.
I do not take pleasure in saying this—but some of the most prominent politicians opposed to health reform are just lying about health reform, lying about the U.S. Senate. They‘re not embarrassed about being caught in the lies. They‘re not even embarrassed about taking brave stands against their own records, their own positions in order to try to stop health reform from succeeding.
Take, for example, Republican Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire. Mr. Gregg went on the FOX News Channel today to decry the use of reconciliation to pass reform.
SEN. JUDD GREGG ®, NEW HAMPSHIRE: It‘s bad policy. And to do it this way is to really railroad the American people and the Congress.
MADDOW: Reconciliation railroading the American people and the Congress—railroading them. That new Judd Gregg really is not going to be happy when we introduce him to the old Judd Gregg.
GREGG: We are using the rules of the Senate here. That‘s what they are, Senator. Reconciliation is a rule of the Senate. All this rule of the Senate does is allow a majority of the Senate to take a position and pass a piece of legislation, support that position. Now, is there something wrong with majority rules? I don‘t think so.
MADDOW: I don‘t think so. Wait until this Judd Gregg hears about what that other Judd Gregg just said, huh?
In their desperation to try to stop health reform by any means necessary, senators opposed to health reform have repeatedly decided to take brave stands against themselves. Now, this desperation is a manifestation of the mass freak-out by opponents of health reform over the fact that health reform is close to a done deal.
And it‘s not just the lying and the hypocrisy by politicians who really ought to know better, it‘s also this—Code Red! This is not a Website that we here at THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW created today in order to satirize the Republican freak-out over health reform passing. This is their actual Web site. Code Red!Look at the siren. You see the siren? “Alerting America to the Democrats‘ Health Care takeover!”—exclamation point. This is a—this is a new project of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Code
Red, Code Red, everybody, freak out!
Another symptom of this freak-out is one that actually makes me upset. You know how in baseball, if you intentionally bump an umpire, you get slapped with a pretty big suspension. On the street, if you assault a police officer, you end up getting a way worse sentence than if you assaulted a person who is not a police officer. The idea is that not that these people are so much more important than regular citizens, but these folks, in doing their jobs, represent the system itself. They represent the commitment that we in America have to living within some agreed upon rules.
People in our society whose job is to uphold the rules can‘t be attacked. That‘s sort of an American value, in everything from our criminal justice system to sports—which is why even jaded Beltway insiders recoiled today when Senate Republicans started to attack the Senate parliamentarian. Yes. This is basically the Senate‘s ump, the guy who calls balls and strikes on how the Senate operates. He hasn‘t even ruled on anything related to health care yet, but Republicans are preemptively bullying the parliamentarian in terms of how he will rule on procedural matters related to health care.
Republican Senator Jim DeMint warning, “I‘ve got concerns,” and telling Politico.com, quote, “I would think that reconciliation would makeor break the perception of his objectivity.”
My friend Senator Orrin Hatch warning, “He‘d be crazy not to follow the rules and to rule properly. If he didn‘t do that, he‘d lose all respect.”Another brave anonymous Republican just throwing the evidence-free insult that “Politico” duly transcribed, quote, “I think most people don‘t trust him.” You know, I would normally show you a picture of the guy that they‘re attacking at this point, but I think that he actually deserves to be left out of this. He‘s the parliamentarian. He‘s a guy who‘s doing his job.
He hasn‘t even done anything yet in this fight, let alone having done anything wrong.
The reason health reform opponents are freaking out—code red, code red—attacking the parliamentarian, lying, denying their own records on subjects like this, the reason they‘re freaking out is because this process is almost done. They‘re desperate. And it‘s not just my opinion that it is almost done, president Obama today made clear that this really is almost over.
Wednesday, March 3rd - Rachel Maddow show- msnbc.com
