Tom DeLay Accuses Pelosi And Reid Of Getting "Very Close To Treason"
April 24, 2007 -- 1:32 PM EST // // Post a Comment
Check out this snippet of an interview Tom DeLay did with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:
You can watch the full interview here at the Tribune-Review's Web site. Here's a fuller transcript:
I think Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are getting very very close to treason...For the Majority Leader of the United States Senate in a time of war, with soldiers dying on the ground, announcing that we have lost the war, is very close to treasonous. I looked it up while we were driving over here, the definition of treason, it's the betrayal of trust. I have never in my adult life, nor in my understanding of history, seen something so blatantly outrageous...I am blown away by this attitude of the Democrats. To me it's just a hatred of Bush...The American people are gonna eventually be fed up with this.
I'm highlighting this for a reason. Has anybody else noticed that every day brings palpably more wild-eyed and unhinged attacks from the folks who either are in favor of the war or the folks who are for some reason instinctually opposed to the Dems' aggressive antiwar stance?
You can see the attacks growing significantly more deranged by the day -- and sometimes by the hour. Yesterday White House flack Dana Perino suggested that anyone who's in favor of withdrawal is a person of bad character. David Broder (not pro-war, but anti-anti-war, if you get my meaning) invented facts outright in order to argue that Reid is an "embarrassment," despite his respectable approval rating. Today brings Bush, who indulged in some of his most demented rhetoric yet to argue that the public's on his side on Iraq, and Cheney, who sputtered and snarled unintelligibly for a few minutes this afternoon before skulking off. And now DeLay's "treason" charge.
What's interesting here, I think, is the discernible tone of incredulity on the part of all the attackers, as if they're mystified by the fact that the Dems just won't back off on Iraq. Dems aren't supposed to be behaving this way. It upsets the natural order of things. When the Dean of Washington journalism says you're an embarrassment who's bungling the Dems' case, you're supposed to quickly run for cover and let more hawkish Dems make the case for the party. But here Reid is again, repeating the things he said yesterday, even turning up the rhetoric a notch. Look, public opinion is complex and mutable, and Dems have many tough choices ahead that they may botch. But judging by the mounting hysteria of their opponents, it looks like their aggressiveness is working.
Update: Think Progress has much more. And Taylor Marsh has vid of the Veep here.
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