Dem congressman objects to Boehner's calling him 'a dead man'

[Enrique]

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/03/amid-death-threats-dem-rep-dreihaus-points-the-finger-at-gop-leadership.php?ref=fpb

(...)

Driehaus, a vulnerable member whose district includes part of Cincinnati, took explicit issue with House Minority Leader John Boehner, who represents a neighboring district. In an interview with National Review Boehner intoned that, if he voted for the bill, Driehaus would be a "dead man." Boehner was talking politics, but for Driehaus, it's become all too real.

"I think it's really important for folks around here, especially leader Boehner, to understand that his words have consequences," Driehaus said. "Leader Boehner suggested that if I vote yes on this bill and go home to the west side of Cincinnati, that I could be a dead man.... It really calls into question his ability to lead. He should be a statesman."

Driehaus confronted Boehner about the interview on the floor of the House. "I told him it was inexcusable," Driehaus said. "It doesn't really matter the way you meant it, nor the way I accept it. It's how the least sane person in my district accepts it."

Republicans' hardline anti-reform rhetoric is changing in the days after reform. But for Driehaus, the damage has already been done. "They are tacitly endorsing the inappropriate behavior and trying to use it to their political gain," Driehaus said. "And they're willing, apparently, to put members families at risk in order to do so."

[JohnWxy]

1. Conservatives always end up threatening violence when they don't get their way.

Boehner can't be statesman. He's paid to put contributor profits BEFORE the public good.

[Qutzupalotl]

3. Republicans are trying to pick up seats any way they can.

If it means a few tragic shootings, too bad.

They're cornered and desperate. I think they're hoping someone shoots the president.

They haven't thought this through. Even if they have no qualms about being an accessory to the crime, the backlash against the Republicans and sympathy towards Democrats would not help them at all... it would hurt them.

They needed rational disagreements with us, but it's too late. They've thrown in with the crazies.

[mdmc]

2. At least he called him out

if something happens, the tea party and Boehner will be held accountable..

[Guilded Lilly]

4. The bottom line fear behind all this political spewing....

"It doesn't really matter the way you meant it, nor the way I accept it. It's how the least sane person in my district accepts it."

It isn't the intelligent, mature and sane people of any party that need to be feared. Intelligence and sanity CAN be approached in at least civil discourse and debated within a certain arena of reason.

It's the truly dumb crazies (and it only takes one to do something incredibly violent and stupid) who take every single soundbite literally and threaten the saner portions of the world.
These purposefully insensitive and volatile words being dropped into *soundbites* are an invitation to violence, and those who drop them, know it, which makes people such as boehner all the more despicable.

[quiet.american]

5. "It's how the least sane person in my district accepts it." - Exactly. nt

[donheld]

6. k & R