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Civility, Seating, and Substance
National Review ^ | January 25, 2011 | Tom Coburn

Posted on 01/25/2011 12:18:54 PM PST by rightwingintelligentsia

A strange commentary on our society is that in the days leading up to the President’s 2011 State of the Union address, the biggest story may not have been the speech itself but the seating of individual members of Congress. A mature democracy that spends this much time analyzing such a basic principle has regressed. The question for conservatives is how to direct our national conversation where it belongs — to the very real problems facing the nation, such as the fact that we’re going bankrupt.

Of course, we are having this discussion not because of the Tucson shootings, but because of the media’s coverage of the shootings. Conservatives had every right to be offended by the Left’s initial knee-jerk narrative blaming conservative rhetoric. Yet, as I mentioned on Meet the Press and discussed with Hugh Hewitt last week, the tendency of conservatives to spend their time overcorrecting this ludicrous narrative contributes to the problem. We should spend 10 percent of our time discussing how to discuss the problem and the other 90 percent discussing the problem. The more time we spend defending ourselves the less time we have to make our case about issues that matter.

Thankfully, the American people have already made up their mind that the problem in the country is our debt, not incivility as defined narrowly by liberals in Congress and the media. The public is upset because our national leaders have been ignoring the real problem and, instead, have been attacking the people for being concerned. In the past two years, we’ve had national leaders, who represent the institutions of government, essentially tossing rhetorical tear gas into a crowd of peaceful protestors, demanding that they disperse and go home.

(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...


TOPICS: Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: sotu; tomcoburn

1 posted on 01/25/2011 12:19:02 PM PST by rightwingintelligentsia
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To: rightwingintelligentsia

Y’all look like wusses, Doc; and it’s really annoying those of us who gave the majority in the House back to the Republicans.


2 posted on 01/25/2011 12:24:59 PM PST by Arm_Bears (I'll have what the gentleman on the floor is drinking.)
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To: rightwingintelligentsia

Senator, lay down with dogs and you will catch fleas. You are either stupid, naive or a dupe for liberal propaganda. Civility, my foot! The Republican delegation has become wussified and spineless. Get a backbone!


3 posted on 01/25/2011 12:27:07 PM PST by Russ (Repeal the 17th amendment)
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To: Arm_Bears
"My friend...Senator Chuck Schumer"

People are known by the friends that they keep. This is beyond barf-worthy...

4 posted on 01/25/2011 12:30:53 PM PST by Russ (Repeal the 17th amendment)
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To: rightwingintelligentsia

By allowing the Leftist media to talk him into a sitting date with the repulsive UpChuck Schumer (D-NY), Coburn has damaged his credibility as a conservative senator. No one should have fallen for this Democrat ruse to keep the American people from seeing how weak their party is post mid-term election.

Conservatives are just plain stupid if they think, just like gullible Charlie Brown with Lucy’s football trick, that this time the Democrats and their enablers in the media will somehow like them better.


5 posted on 01/25/2011 12:32:56 PM PST by kittymyrib
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To: rightwingintelligentsia

Why do so many of these guys seem to LOVE getting spit on by their “good friends”?


6 posted on 01/25/2011 12:33:00 PM PST by PogySailor (The ruling class will not go down easily. And neither will their paid hacks.)
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To: rightwingintelligentsia
Good sportsmanship calls for shaking your opponent's hand after the game, not sitting on their bench while it is being played.
7 posted on 01/25/2011 12:36:29 PM PST by AmusedBystander (Republicans may have helped drive the economy into the ditch, but Obama is driving it off the cliff.)
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To: rightwingintelligentsia

There’s no way I’d sit behind some lard @$$ ‘rat who’d be bouncing up and down giving Big0 multiple standing 0’s. It’s bad enough to look ‘em in the eye.


8 posted on 01/25/2011 12:38:15 PM PST by Paladin2
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To: rightwingintelligentsia

This is just another glaring example of how DC doesn’t get it.
They are mucking around with this nonsense which no one outside of DC cares about.
Liberal or conservative; people want their interests advanced forward.
This hand holding namby pamby is not what is desired.

I would assume the liberal union thugs feel the same way.


9 posted on 01/25/2011 12:38:25 PM PST by HereInTheHeartland (Vote like Obama is on the ballot)
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To: All

Defeat OBAMA Care. Donate to Free Republic!


10 posted on 01/25/2011 12:44:01 PM PST by RedMDer (restoration of our honor, dignity, and freedoms will save America. - Sarah Palin)
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To: rightwingintelligentsia

I don’t have the patience to read the rest of his remarks. What he says in the opening paragraphs makes good sense. So why the hell is he agreeing to play footsie with Chuckie Schumer and go along with this nonsense?


11 posted on 01/25/2011 12:58:52 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: rightwingintelligentsia

The Republicans took the bait! This seating stupidity just lets the Dems appear to be completely justified in tying the Tucson shootings to political rhetoric, which clearly had nothing to do with it. I can’t begin to figure out just what lack of OOs led to this.

I’m interested in just who sits with who and who forgoes this lunacy. The one’s who have the guts to forgo this lunacy will be my first choices when I decide who to support.


12 posted on 01/25/2011 1:01:05 PM PST by Aleya2Fairlie
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To: rightwingintelligentsia

Coburn is an idiot. Trying to rationalize the stupidity of this Kumbaya crap compounds the problem. The GOP just doesn’t get it.


13 posted on 01/25/2011 1:10:25 PM PST by kabar
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To: rightwingintelligentsia

14 posted on 01/25/2011 1:19:01 PM PST by AngelesCrestHighway
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To: kabar

I’m approaching this from a different angle. To me, this kumbaya moment of pairing off with a Dem as a seating partner does nothing but give the Dems a direct road map to those Pubs who can be easily swayed and thus worked on in future policy battles as weak links. All the Dems have to do is chart those Pubs who were willing to pair up for this ridiculous display of “bipartisonship” (note it was a Dem who came up with this idea, not a Pub), and they will know exactly which Pubs to work on in future ideological battles. Kind of like when Geraldo Rivera drew out our troops battle plans in the sand. Talk about a dead giveaway (ooops, sorry, I used the word dead, shame on me for my political incorrectness).

Well, I guess the good news is those Pubs that have capitulated to this ridiculous seating arrangement have given our side the same roadmap to chart those RINO’s who are willing to give in, and thus bear careful watching in the future. We too know who the weak links are and therefore can target them for elimination (oooh, my bad) in future Pub primary races.


15 posted on 01/25/2011 1:34:32 PM PST by flaglady47 (When the gov't fears the people, liberty; When the people fear the gov't, tyranny.)
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To: rightwingintelligentsia

Its all a guvmint plot to drive a wedgie between the peoples what voted for the Republicans cause they is racist what hate
Jackass politicians.But what they hey they can put at a table with someone too stupid to know the difference between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—or with someone who thinks th e First Amendment’s Establishment Clause prohibits any religious symbolism on Government property-but that doesn’t mean I have to talk to them-or agree with their stupidity.


16 posted on 01/25/2011 1:52:50 PM PST by StonyBurk (ring)
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To: kabar
"The GOP just doesn’t get it."

Damn right. There is no way they should ever have agreed to this farce. Spineless and stupid, and that about sums up a large part of the Republican party and tells you why the left have been winning for so long.

Here is what they should say.

"We will have no truck with today’s un-American Democrat Party. There is a second part to the message. That part is we reject the premise of your calls for “bipartisanship”, and we reject the propaganda that underpins it. Not only now, but for every time in the future that you attempt to use such propaganda. Our objective is to destroy your party and restore every breach of the Constitution that has occurred over the last 150 years and we will never ever again allow such a cancer to grow within our Free Republic.

This is America, and we came here to escape Europe, and we will not allow you today to redefine our Republic into the very state we rejected with the blood and sacrifice of our forefathers during the War of Independence.

You sit there, we will sit here. You fight for your objective, and we will fight for ours. Today, with our Constitutional Republic under threat like never before, we reject your bipartisanship on the grounds that it is underpinned by lies and deceit, and that your objectives are far beyond the bounds of any compromise. We patriots do not want to sit amongst you, but even more strongly desire that you traitors should not sit amongst us."

From “Bipartisan” seating arrangements a ruse the Republicans need to wake up to

17 posted on 01/25/2011 2:44:30 PM PST by wistful
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To: rightwingintelligentsia

18 posted on 01/25/2011 2:54:36 PM PST by Hotlanta Mike (TeaNami)
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