December 21, 2009 FOX News
Dave N.: After Dick Durbin called him out for urging people to pray that some Democrat can't make the final health-care vote, Sen. Tom Coburn talked with Fox News' Greta Van Susteren yesterday to sorta kinda not really explain what he meant:
Coburn: I wouldn't back away from that. I'd love for everybody's alarm clock that's for this thing not to work. You know, the fact is that this is an epic change in our country. It's a reduction in freedom in our country. It doesn't reform health care, it just expands the mess that we have today.
And it tells you a couple of things. They don't want to talk about the bill. They want to talk about what somebody said.
And I think in Senator Durbin's comments, what he said was, 'My friend.' Well, if you think your friend said something that's inappropriate, you don't go blasting him on the floor, you say, 'What did you mean by that?' I mean, that's a friend.
Van Susteren: So I take it you guys aren't friends, at least not today.
Coburn: Well no, he's still my friend. I would never do that to him. I'd go ask him what he meant before I'd go and blast him on the floor if I thought -- and everybody knew that I wouldn't cause -- you know, as a physician, I wouldn't wish ill health on anybody. And they know that. But it's the politics of silliness that we get into in Washington when we're stretching things out and doing things of major consequence in this country when it's all partisan.
And so that was all about partisanship, you know -- he didn't say one thing, he didn't refute one of the things that I said during this debate about how this is going to harm patients. He didn't say anything about that.
It would be a lot easier to take this denial at face value. But when you have some of Coburn's fellow religious-right nutcases out there applying a Psalm wishing for someone's death to President Obama, and otherwise ramping up the use of "imprecatory prayers" against political opponents, especially President Obama ... well, let's just say we all know what a dog whistle sounds like.
This is why Amato called out Matt Lewis yesterday for indulging in the "alarm clock" nonsense. Yeah, guys, we're all that stupid.
