I hardly know how to react to such a display from a former judge. It's one thing to be conservative but do you have to be an asshole? I've had far more polite disagreements with white supremacists and John Birch Society members. What can you say? My homies voted for him. I wonder what it was like to practice law in the man's courtroom?
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Louie Gohmert and judicial temperament
I try to steer this blog away from straight-up culture war debates and onto more constructive terrain, so I resisted commenting when state Rep. Debbie Riddle went on national TV to say that "terror babies" were being birthed in the United States by extremist Muslims in preparation for future attacks. Though we disagree on many things, I like Riddle personally and thought perhaps she'd merely been confused by a trailer for the Angelina Jolie movie Salt. (Those were Russians, Debbie!) But then Congressman Louie Gohmert from my hometown followed up by repeating the accusation on the House floor, afterward going on Anderson Cooper and yelling at him for 10 minutes in a truly bizarre rant of the type you might expect right before somebody goes out to shoot up a post office or fly a plane into an IRS building. His originating source for the accusation is an unnamed woman (perhaps Riddle?) he spoke to on an airplane! No, really! Radley Balko provided this clip of the remarkable exchange (no need to watch all of it, since it becomes repetitive after Gohmert begins yelling and refusing to answer any direct questions):
I hardly know how to react to such a display from a former judge. It's one thing to be conservative but do you have to be an asshole? I've had far more polite disagreements with white supremacists and John Birch Society members. What can you say? My homies voted for him. I wonder what it was like to practice law in the man's courtroom?
I hardly know how to react to such a display from a former judge. It's one thing to be conservative but do you have to be an asshole? I've had far more polite disagreements with white supremacists and John Birch Society members. What can you say? My homies voted for him. I wonder what it was like to practice law in the man's courtroom?
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7 comments:
Grits, I'm glad he's from your hometown and not mine. Mine has suffered embarrassment enuf! Rev. charles
Wow. That was embarrassing.
Fortunately, I know longer live in Tyler (or Texas), so Mr. Gohmert is not my representative anymore. I've liked some of the things he's said (such as suggesting a moratorium on payroll taxes a while back as a way to help the economy). I lived in Tyler when Gohmert first ran for the House. I just couldn't vote for him because he had been a judge in Smith County. I didn't know anything that he had personally done wrong but it would be hard for anyone to come up through the Smith County political machine and not be tainted. There's just too much corruption there.
12:51 Careful now or people will start thinking about who came out of the Cook County (Chicago) machine.
On May 13 this year, I flew to DFW on a flight from DC. Our Chamber had been deliver our Legislative action plan to our reps and senators. Gohmert was on the flight along with another Congressman from the Midland area.
Gohmert was the only one of the two who rode FIRST CLASS...an embarressment on SO many levels
shocker, another bizarre right wing talking point.
Thank you, Representative Gomer . . .
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