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Time for another Gooberhead Award – presented periodically to those in the news who have their tongues running 100 miles an hour… but forgot to put their minds in gear.
Today, I’ve got a mess of GOP goobers for you – three politicos who keep stumbling over things… like facts. First, Jon Kyl, the Arizona senator who tried to kill a bill in December that would finally provide medical benefits for those firefighters, police, and other heroic 9/11 rescuers who’re now horribly ill because of the toxins they absorbed at ground zero. Kyl wailed that Democrats had rushed the bill to the floor without a hearing.
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Rushed? Jon, 9/11 happened a decade ago, and many of the heroes have already died waiting in vain for Congress to act, including the callous inaction by you and your party during all those years that Republicans controlled Congress and the White House. No hearing? Jon, Jon, Jon, the Senate Committee on Health held one last June, and you could have participated had you just walked down the hall from your office. But you didn’t.
Next come a couple of stumblebum governors. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota recently blasted Obama for bloating the public payroll by 590,000 government jobs since 2008. Uh, governor, Obama didn’t take office until 2009. In fact, in Obama’s two year tenure, the number of public employees is down by 300,000.
Then there’s Rick Perry of Texas, who says he hates “Big Government.” Echoing the noted historian, Glenn Beck, Rick says that big bad government started when Woodrow Wilson pushed the 16th Amendment into the Constitution, creating the income tax. That’s a punchy political anecdote – only, it’s false. The 16th Amendment was approved under a Republican president before Wilson took office.
Goobers, you see, never let facts get in the way of a good story.
“What the right response is,” The New York Times,” December 29, 2010.
“The Humbug Express,” The New York Express,” December 29, 2010.
“Perry’s income tax origin tale ignores bipartisan history,” Austin American Statesman, December 19, 2010.
“Kyl Denies Health Care For 9/11 Rescue Workers Because He Doesn’t Want To ‘Hurry,’” www.thinkprogress.org, December 19, 2010.