House Majority Whip shot at congressional baseball field

[Dill]

(06-17-2017, 09:42 AM)michaelsean Wrote: So like the things Ted Kennedy said about Rober Bork?  Or what was done to Clarence Thomas?  Or Dan Quayle because he misspelled potato?  Or the Senate majority leader telling a classroom of kids that the president is an idiot?  How about the constant charges of racism over the last 8 years?
Of course all of this skips the initial statement that started this. When an event like the VA one happens one group will blame the extremism of the other group.

Some people will blame extremism on the other group. And some people will be motivated to examine the social and historical origins of that extremism.

I don't remember what Kennedy said about Bork or which senate majority leader said what to a classroom of kids. Could you fill in a bit more and explain why or how these set a precedent and/or broke previous norms.

Are you offering media laughter at Quayle as an example of a political tactic which broke previously established boundaries of decorum?

What was "done" to Thomas? A woman came forward and said he sexually harassed her. Something to consider if he will be hearing sexual harassment cases. If you believe her, as I do, then she did the right thing. Then he was confirmed. That was the wrong thing. Would you argue that calling someone like that to testify in a confirmation hearing was a precedent or broke levels of decorum? 

Your example got me to thinking of the Bork hearing a few years earlier, which conservatives have claimed was a "political" dis-confirmation. Would that be a better example?

You seem to assume that charges of racism cannot be true and calling out racism is automatically a bad thing. But in your response, I cannot tell who is making such charges, to whom, or why. A memo from someone in the DNC or from Nancy Pelosi suggesting that Democrats always frame Republican policies as anti-race, whether they actually are or not, followed by a number of Democrats doing exactly that, would certainly be an effective counter example to my Republican examples.

Further clarification, by way of example. Nixon ordering the Watergate break in was a dirty trick. But that trick was not on the Republican Party. Nixon did not clear it with party officials. Party officials did not condone it nor accept any benefit from it. That was just Nixon, and his party repudiated him for doing it. Republicans did not adopt break ins as a tactic, and Democrats did not copy them to keep up. Hence my examples do not put forward behavior like Nixon's as political innovation which lowered the level of political discourse, even though it certainly broke boundaries.