There are widespread reports of the big blowout in the Senate yesterday, featuring the freakishly evil Ronda Storms and newcomer Chris Smith.
Smith, a Democrat, at one point went off on Storms, saying "don't piss on me and tell me it's raining." He was rebuked for the language by committee chair Mike Fasano and he apologized for the choice of words. Who cares? Why did Fasano even make an issue of it? Does anyone actually believe that legislators don't cuss or use colorful metaphors all the time? Does anyone actually think that such language could actually cause anyone any harm? Does anyone think that the problems Florida faces are so minor that we should be worrying about things so ridiculous? Anyone not see the hypocrisy on Fasano's part? What with the content of his brother Tim's blog?
The real problems in this meeting came from Storms. She made a sarcastic remark about President Barack Obama, referring to him as "the messiah," and whining that Obama supporters can't stand to see him questioned. Fasano reprimanded her for the remark, saying that the president should be respected, regardless of who is in the office. She failed to apologize. No surprise there, she's batshit crazy. And remarks like that are to be expected from her. That remark wasn't the problem and, again, we have bigger things to worry about.
But she also repeatedly lied before the committee. And that's a significant problem. Most media reports gloss over the rest of her remarks focusing on the dueling inappropriate comments. The problem is that while those are sexy, headline-grabbing remarks, the fact that Storms repeatedly referred to discredited smears of the president and used ridiculous logic while discussing actual public policies is the real story here and few (outside of NPR) are letting the public know about it.
Storms repeatedly made reference to the "fact" that Obama "promised" to take part in the public finance system for the general election last year, then "flip-flopped" and/or "lied" and opted out of the system. This argument has been widely rejected as not even remotely true, but you couldn't blame an average citizen for believing it, since the media repeats it. Storms, though, is held to a higher standard since she is an elected representative of the people. She is supposed to know better and is supposed to do her homework on behalf of her constituents, not just repeat Fox News talking points.
As anyone who has been paying attention knows, Obama said, quite clearly and repeatedly, that he would opt in to the public finance system if, and only if, John McCain would agree to stringent rules that would limit not only what the campaigns did, but 527s, political parties and other groups as well. Obama knew, based on Republican history, that the candidate would abide by any agreement, but would then outsource the dirty tricks to these other groups. Obama acted on that knowledge and said that things had to be done fair and honest or that he wouldn't handcuff himself and give McCain an unfair advantage. McCain and his people rejected these conditions, so Obama stayed out of the public finance system. Very straightforward concept. If...then. No if, no then.
If Storms didn't know this, she should've. It's really easy to find stuff like this out. Even worse, though, was the fact that she then twisted the results of the election to support her ridiculous position on publicly-financed elections. Her claim, and I'm not making this up, was that since Obama "lied" about public financing and he won the election, then the people don't support public financing. This is utterly ridiculous. Nobody, not one single voter, anywhere, ever, has voted for or against a candidate solely because of their stance on publicly-financed elections. People vote on other things for other reasons (rightfully so) and Storms is, in addition to her directly lying, being intellectually dishonest with this stupid, stupid claim. Shame on her, but this is business as usual for her and is a clear indictment of the voters of her district who supported her. She isn't qualified to be a dogcatcher, much less one of the people making decisions on our behalf. |
