Greg Sargent -- in a post at The Washington Post picked up and spread wide in the blogosphere and by Harry Reid's campaign -- claims that Sharron Angle twice refuses to disavow claim that there are "domestic enemies" in Congress.
The background is that Sargent found (was given?) an audio tape of an Angle radio interview from October 2009 as follows:
MANDERS: We have domestic enemies. We have home-born homegrown enemies in our system. And I for one think we have some of those enemies in the walls of the Senate and the Congress.In his first post, Sargent noted that '[i]n fairness to Angle, the incendiary remark was made by Manders."
ANGLE: Yes. I think you're right, Bill.
In Sargent's current post, about how Angle's "refuses" to "disavow" the prior comments, Sargent posts the transcript of a more recent Angle interview in which Angle twice explained what she meant in the October 2009 interview:
ANGLE: Well, we were talking about what's going on in Congress, of course, and the policies that have come out of Congress, and those policies as we've all seen over the last 18 months have definitely hurt our country.
* * *
ANGLE: There is no doubt that the policies that have been coming out in the last 18 months have injured us, and injured us most specifically here in Nevada.So, reading the transcript in Sargent's column, it is clear that Angle explained that she was referring to harmful policies. There is nothing in Angle's comments or clarification which suggests what Sargent (and the Reid campaign) wants to suggest about Angle, that she is advocating violence against members of Congress.
And you would know that if you read the text of the transcript in Sargent's column, rather than the headline and campaign spin.
Why does Sargent "refuse" to "disavow" his inaccurate spin?
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A New Day, A New Accusation Against Sharron Angle
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What is in the least bit controversial about anything that the woman (or the radio host, for that matter) is reported to have said in either of those two transcript snippets? If one believes in the principles of a constitutional republic, with limited central government powers, and decentralized decision making, why wouldn't one look to those that seek to impose a centralized, unitary government, destroying the limits on the powers delegated to the central government in the process as domestic enemies?
ReplyDeleteI don't know that I'd use those specific words, but there's nothing extraordinarily outrageous about the choice of words in question.
Exactly. Look at all the radicals, communists and socialists Obama (Mr. Fundamental Transformation himself) has brought to the table. If they are not domestic enemies, I don't who is.
ReplyDeleteThe whole labeling of that view as 'extremist' is based on three fallacies:
1. That it is somehow impossible for domestic enemies to exist in government and that the very idea can't happen.
2. It ignores the facts that show that these people don't have Americas best interests in mind.
and
3. That calling them domestic enemies inherently is the same thing as calling for violence against them, which is a stupid beyond belief assumption. Using that logic, every insult and criticism of someone is equal to a death threat.
No one is advocating violence against these enemies, they just need to be exposed for what they are and hopefully the American people vote these bums and their agenda out. If not, then we are stuck with it for the foreseeable future, and the enablers have zero right to complain.