Yesterday was a bad day for Democrat oratory. Perhaps driven to mushmouthedness by the recent 24-hour talkathon in advance of yesterday’s confirmation vote on Betsy DeVos, two prominent Democratic congresswomen put their feet in their respective mouths on different subjects.
First, Nancy Pelosi apparently flashed back almost two decades to the year 2001. Rep. Pelosi (D-Cal.), speaking in a press conference covered by Fox News, said, “While it's only been a couple of weeks since the inauguration, we've seen nothing that I can work with President Bush on.”
While Ms. Pelosi may be confused about who the president is, she isn’t confused about her opposition to all things Republican. While some Democrats have hinted that they might be open to deals with Mr. Trump on infrastructure spending programs, for Ms. Pelosi, apparently the fact that President Trump has an (R) after his name is sufficient to merit total opposition, just as it was for President Bush.
In yesterday’s second example of a Democratic gaffe, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Cal.) erroneously accused Vladimir Putin of making moves in Korea. “The fact that he [Trump] is wrapping his arms around Putin, while Putin is continuing to advance into [pause] Korea,” Waters said on CSPAN, “I think that he is leading himself into that kind of position where folks will begin to ask: 'What are we going to do?' and the answer is going to be, eventually, we've got to do something about him.”
Waters may have been thinking about Crimea or Ukraine, which are half a world away from Korea, but phonetically similar. Putin’s Russia has annexed Crimea and is sponsoring an insurgency in Ukraine. Of course, given Mr. Putin’s penchant for expansionism and the fact that North Korea considers Russia one of its best friends, maybe Waters knows something we don’t.
Pelosi and Waters continue in the grand tradition of congressional Democratic oratory that includes Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) who once expressed concern in a committee hearing that the large number of military personnel on Guam might cause the island to “tip over and capsize.” Johnson’s statement stands as the most amusing clips of a congressional hearing that I have ever seen.
Even with their misstatements, in deep blue California Pelosi and Waters probably don’t have to fear that their seats might be in jeopardy. Rep. Johnson made his statement, undoubtedly one of the dumbest things ever said in Congress, in 2010. He is still serving his district today.
Originally published
on The
Resurgent
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