What you are about to read in this news report is indicative of how partisanship, lock-step ideology, and political hatred so skewers a politician’s view and his assertions that he not just loses credibility but is a liability to his party, since his comments will get played and run in newspapers and in cyberspace for a long time to come. Just read how Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) literally insults the families of Newtown victims:
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said Tuesday that the gun control debate doesn’t have anything to do with the families of the Newtown, Conn., shooting victims, and that the only reason those families think it does is because President Barack Obama told them it did.
Eleven family members of Newtown victims were in Washington on Tuesday, meeting privately with senators to urge them to support a forthcoming gun package that would impose tighter background checks, crack down on gun trafficking and enhance school safety measures. Speaking to a handful of reporters, Inhofe said he feels bad for those families because they’re being used as pawns in a political fight.
“See, I think it’s so unfair of the administration to hurt these families, to make them think this has something to do with them when, in fact, it doesn’t,” Inhofe said.
When it was suggested that the families of Newtown victims actually believe the gun debate pertains to them, Inhofe said, “Well, that’s because they’ve been told that by the president.”
So this has nothing to do with the murdered kids and butchered adults who tried to protect the kids from a young killer with an assault weapon, according to the Senator. The current big push on gun control, he says, is strictly happenstance plus another big plot by Barack Obama. Subtext of what he is saying: these folks whose lives are truly shattered — a word overused but not here — simply aren’t smart enough to understand that (in the good Senator’s opinion) there is really nothing at all related to the deaths of their loved ones with what is before Congress.
I’ll say it again: this kind of rank, partisan hatred which virtually begs playing The Twlight Zone theme would have been unimaginable in a tragedy such as this even a few years ago.
A request for comment from a spokesman for Sandy Hook Promise, the organization created by members of the Newtown community in response to shooting, was not immediately returned.
Oh: and THIS should come as no surprise:
Inhofe is one of 14 Senate Republicans vowing to filibuster the gun reform bill when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) brings it up for debate on Thursday. Reid needs 60 votes just to begin debate on the bill.
I wonder how I guessed that he’d be on this list?
P.S. Republican rebranding is not going too well…
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.