| Let's just get this out of the way: The idea that Lisa Brown or anyone else threw a "temper tantrum" on the floor of the House Wednesday is complete nonsense. People who throw temper tantrums don't talk about what dishes they use to serve kosher meats during religious observances. People who throw temper tantrums say things that make no sense. Media people who write about this don't need to, and shouldn't, leave this off as a he said/she said thing, because there is widely circulated video evidence of what she did. And, no reasonable person could possibly watch that video and think that anyone threw a temper tantrum. At least, no one who has kids and has presumably seen a real temper tantrum Secondly, the real victim here is not -- as Ari Adler attempts to paint it in Rochelle Riley's highly regrettable column -- is not the Republican Party. Adler said the pair endured what Republicans have for some time. "For the past four years, Republicans were rarely recognized to speak," he said. "Jim Stamas was a member of the minority, and so was (Speaker) Jace Bolger. They know what it was like to never be recognized and they said, 'We're not going to treat the minority party the way we were treated.' "
If they were really concerned about properly treating members of the other party, ever, Adler wouldn't have spent the last two days dismissing Lisa Brown and Barb Byrum as having engaged in purposeful hysterics to score political points. He, and by way of his boss, would have apologized for overreacting and allowed both women to speak on Thursday. This isn't about a simple mistake made in the heat of the moment, because the moment has now lasted about 48 hours. This is a bad political misstep based on the idea that it would quickly die off after Republicans resorted to an age-old and time tested playbook in which they pretend that they're the party of sober, rational thought and everyone is engaged in hyper-emotionalism. That having failed, they've moved on to another age-old and time tested tactic, which is to say that they're the real victim here. By the way, while we're on the topic, the Vagina Monologues is coming to the steps of the Capitol next Monday. Guess who wouldn't comment on a story for it? Lesia Liss, the lone Demcratic woman who voted in favor of the package of bills that sparked all this. Her man spoke on her behalf. |
