GOP Rep. Nunes Excuses Racist, Homophobic Tea Partier Slurs As A Response To ‘Totalitarian Tactics’

[Emit]

This morning on C-Span’s Washington Journal, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) justified the disturbing racist and homophobic epitaphs that angry tea baggers hurled yesterday at Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), and other House Democrats. Nunes insisted that everyone has a right to “smear” whoever they want and that the tea baggers’ behavior was understandable given the “crazy totalitarian tactics” that he alleges Democrats are engaged in:

SCULLY: A lot of angry comments aimed at a couple of your colleagues, including Barney Frank and Congressman John Lewis, using the “n” word as some of the protesters jeered at him as he walked through the halls of the Capitol.

NUNES: Yeah, well I think that when you use totalitarian tactics, people, you know, begin to act crazy. I think, you know, there’s people that have every right to say what they want. If they want to smear someone, they can do it. It’s not appropriate. And I think I would stop short of characterizing the 20,000 people protesting, that all of them were doing that –


~snip~

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/21/nunes-tea-part/

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2010/03/rep-devin-nunes-endorses-racist-and-homophobic-slurs.php

[Dappleganger]

1. Exposing them for who they really are is a GOOD thing.

People need to see the truth.

[ohheckyeah]

2. Could someone point me to the thread

about the tea baggers yelling the racist and homophobic epitaphs? I never did read the whole story.

Thanks.

[Warpy]

6. Well, you could Google or search DU

http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20100320/pl_mcclatchy/3457015

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/20/AR2010032002556.html

I guess Nunes (R-"beaner*") didn't get the memo: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/88081-gop-leaders-disavow-tea-party-activists-epithets-toward-lawmakers

*milder than I can come up with but my guess is he still wouldn't much like being called that.

[ohheckyeah]

7. Thanks very much

I must not be really awake yet as I didn't come up with it on my search. Insomnia sucks!

[Warpy]

9. It also would have helped had you

known they were "epithets." Epitaphs are what I hope are mounted above every GOP's dead career after this year.

[ohheckyeah]

11. LOL....

Good point.

[alp227]

3. When I first read this i thought that the rep. "dismissed" those remarks.

But I re-read, and :wow:

If the people of his district seriously re-elect him, I think it might tell much about the constituency, right?

[Emit]

4. He also said that the Democratic Party is no longer the Democratic Party but are Socialists now

he is nuts. He is feeding the tea baggers.

[sneezepaddle]

5. This dude just said HCR was a totalitarian push toward socialism!

These Repukes are fucking crazy...this plan is not government run and is almost identical to what that right wing nut Nixon proposed. The Repukes are either dumb or evil...there is no in between.

[Emit]

10. It's incredible, I think

Can you imagine the wrath that Dems would've incurred had elected Dem officials called Bush & Co. Fascists?

[Proud Liberal Dem]

13. Yup

It would be bouncing ALL OVER the corporate media whore networks at the speed of light. In fact, didn't this actually happen with Durbin once back in 2007 when he inferred a Bush/Hitler comparison?

I heard this "people wouldn't be so mad at Obama if he wasn't being so *radical*" meme on the BBC program, "World Have Your Say" a month or two ago. It was nauseating to listen to. :puke:

[Emit]

16. Oh, gosh, you're right. I forgot about the Durbin thing and yes, folks were up in arms about that

iirc, it was even discussed heavily here at DU. I am saddened that this Socialism/Totalitarian meme hasn't been addressed adequately by anyone in M$M, the WH, etc. with general public. It's outrageous, imho. It just allows tea baggers to be justified in their outlandish claims!

[Proud Liberal Dem]

17. and, more importantly, behavior

The more they're led to believe that Obama (or anybody) is "illegally" running the country and taking away rights,freedoms,etc. the more likely it is going to be that the nuttiest of the nutters might decide that they really have to "do something about it."
:scared:

The Repubs, if there are any sane ones left, need to calm these people down a bit. They also, frankly, need to calm down a bit themselves and refrain from using such overheated and hyperbolic rhetoric themselves because they are going to be the next targets of teabagger rage once it becomes obvious that they aren't going to deliver on the teabaggers' radical agenda either. At the very least, IMHO they need to acknowledge that, although they may have some profound ideological/political differences with President Obama and the Democratic Party and that they don't like the fact that a majority of the voters elected Obama and maintained the Democratic majority in Congress, we are NOT all suddenly living in a totalitarian state ruled by a bunch of commies (socialists=commies in their book).

[Bobbieo]

8. Would that same teabagger spit on or smear Condi Rice, Michael Steele or the Clarence Thomases?

[Arkana]

12. Morons.

[Raschel]

14. Even if it was "totalitarian", wth does that have to do with skin color? Nunes is a bigot.

[Swamp Rat]

15. NUNES: 'Blame the n......!'

1. There are not 20,000 people protesting. It's Sunday and most of the New American Nazi Teabagging Klan are too busy drinking cheap beer and fucking a blood relative.

2. Not all of the protesters are charter members of the Ku Klux Klan, but ALL of them became members when they renamed it the Tea Party.

3. Nunes é um filho da barata e o cu de Bush.

[Emit]

18. wrong thread, lol