McCain Stands Up Against Bachmann And Her Gang Of Raging Sociopaths... But Where's Mitt?

Monday, my friend Roland-- who only follows politics passively... kind of like the way non-sports fans follow sports-- asked me what was the big freakout about Hillary Clinton having an Arab spy working for her in the State Department. I told him about former Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy, an iconic figure of the right who symbolizes, for normal people, one of the nadirs of American politics. And today we have characters like Allen West (R-FL), Ed Royce (R-CA) and Michele Bachmann (R-MN) who are the embodiment of the Joe McCarthy spirit.

The video above, a floor speech from John McCain yesterday, shows McCain at his best-- something we've seen less and less of in recent years. McCain, in effect, rips Bachmann to shreds over her unfounded, gratuitous, McCarthy-like attacks against Huma Abedin. Bachmann and other bigoted and deranged Republican extremists who drink, eat and breath hatred and divisiveness-- Trent Franks (R-AZ), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Tom Rooney (R-FL) and Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA)-- are claiming she's a member of a Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy. McCain: "These attacks on Huma have no logic, no basis and no merit. And they need to stop now."

Maybe McCain has never met Bachmann, Franks, Gohmert, Rooney and Westmoreland. Not only are they the anti-brain trust of his party, they are all committed to the politics of self-victimization. Ed Rollins told Fox News today that "[h]aving worked for Bachmann’s campaign for president, I am fully aware that she sometimes has difficulty with her facts." I don't know how they missed Allen West but they are at the heart of a deadly cancer eating away at American politics. And they don't give a damn what John McCain says has to stop now. McCain released his speech on his website yesterday. In part, he said,

“Over the past decade, I have had the pleasure of coming to know Huma during her long and dedicated service to Hillary Rodham Clinton, both in the United States Senate and now in the Department of State. I know Huma to be an intelligent, upstanding, hard-working, and loyal servant of our country and our government, who has devoted countless days of her life to advancing the ideals of the nation she loves and looking after its most precious interests. That she has done so while maintaining her characteristic decency, warmth, and good humor is a testament to her ability to bear even the most arduous duties with poise and confidence.

“Put simply, Huma represents what is best about America: the daughter of immigrants, who has risen to the highest levels of our government on the basis of her substantial personal merit and her abiding commitment to the American ideals that she embodies so fully. I am proud to know Huma, and to call her my friend.

“Recently, it has been alleged that Huma, a Muslim American, is part of a nefarious conspiracy to harm the United States by unduly influencing U.S. foreign policy at the Department of State in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist causes. On June 13, five members of Congress wrote to the Deputy Inspector General of the Department of State, demanding that he begin an investigation into the possibility that Huma and other American officials are using their influence to promote the cause of the Muslim Brotherhood within the U.S. government. The information offered to support these serious allegations is based on a report, ‘The Muslim Brotherhood in America,’ produced by the Center for Security Policy.

“To say that the accusations made in both documents are not substantiated by the evidence they offer is to be overly polite and diplomatic about it. It is far better, and more accurate, to talk straight: These allegations about Huma, and the report from which they are drawn, are nothing less than an unwarranted and unfounded attack on an honorable citizen, a dedicated American, and a loyal public servant.

“The letter alleges that three members of Huma’s family are ‘connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations.’ Never mind that one of those individuals, Huma’s father, passed away two decades ago. The letter and the report offer not one instance of an action, a decision, or a public position that Huma has taken while at the State Department that would lend credence to the charge that she is promoting anti-American activities within our government. Nor does either document offer any evidence of a direct impact that Huma may have had on one of the U.S. policies with which the authors of the letter and the producers of the report find fault. These sinister accusations rest solely on a few unspecified and unsubstantiated associations of members of Huma’s family, none of which have been shown to harm or threaten the United States in any way. These attacks on Huma have no logic, no basis, and no merit. And they need to stop now.

“Ultimately, what is at stake in this matter is larger even than the reputation of one person. This is about who we are as a nation, and who we aspire to be. What makes America exceptional among the countries of the world is that we are bound together as citizens not by blood or class, not by sect or ethnicity, but by a set of enduring, universal, and equal rights that are the foundation of our constitution, our laws, our citizenry, and our identity. When anyone, not least a member of Congress, launches specious and degrading attacks against fellow Americans on the basis of nothing more than fear of who they are and ignorance of what they stand for, it defames the spirit of our nation, and we all grow poorer because of it.
“Our reputations, our character, are the only things we leave behind when we depart this earth, and unjust attacks that malign the good name of a decent and honorable person is not only wrong; it is contrary to everything we hold dear as Americans.

“Some years ago, I had the pleasure, along with my friend, the Senator from South Carolina, Senator Lindsey Graham, of traveling overseas with our colleague, then-Senator Hillary Clinton. By her side, as always, was Huma, and I had the pleasure of seeing firsthand her hard work and dedicated service on behalf of the former Senator from New York-- a service that continues to this day at the Department of State, and bears with it significant personal sacrifice for Huma.

“I have every confidence in Huma’s loyalty to our country, and everyone else should as well. All Americans owe Huma a debt of gratitude for her many years of superior public service. I hope these ugly and unfortunate attacks on her can be immediately brought to an end and put behind us before any further damage is done to a woman, an American, of genuine patriotism and love of country.”

Nice that McCain has the guts to stand up to the destructive sociopaths in his own party-- and lucky for her and the country he knows Huma, who is married to former Congressman (and Jew) Anthony Weiner, personally. But where's the GOP's leader on this. Have you heard a peep from Mitt Romney? Of course not. Mitt Romney is afraid to take on the radical freaks like Gohmert and Bachmann and the rest. Right now they're beating him into the ground about his desire to not give Sarah Palin a prime time speaking slot at the Republican National Convention. They'll win-- just the way psychotic homophobe Bryan Fischer forced Romney to fire his one gay staffer. Romney is a classic coward-- fine to lead a bunch of teenagers bully a younger student and hold him down and cut his hair, but standing up to bigger boys? Mitt Romney? It's never happened and it never will happen. He's the most dangerous kind of cowardly bully we could ever dream of giving elected office.

Of course, Romney isn't the only Republican hiding in the bathroom on this one. Boehner, questioned by the press, is refusing to answer anything about it. Future Speaker Nancy Pelosi, on he other hand, praised McCain for “his powerful rejection of these baseless accusations.... Every wave of new immigrants to America has faced a wave of ignorance and discrimination. I would have hoped that this type of discourse no longer existed in our country, but clearly we have more educating to do with respect to what America is about.”


UPDATE: Romney, Forever The Cowardly Bully, Is Still Hiding

But even John Boehner spoke up today in defense of Huma, chastising Bachmann and reminding decent Americans of all stripes that Bachmann's baseless hate-fueled accusations were "pretty dangerous." Marco Rubio was also repulsed by Bachmann's (and Rooney's?) McCarthyism. "I don’t share the feelings that are in that letter," Rubio wants voters to know. So will Bachmann have a prime time speaking slot at the Republican national Convention in Tampa or not?

And noew every Republican opportunist in Congress is crawling out from under their rocks to denounce Bachmann for their own electoral reasons, like this Romney-like phony:



Bachmann's most insane comrade-in-arms, Louie Gohmert, pops out of his garbage can, brags about hugging some Muslims and digs in on the crazy Bachmann claims: