PrintOctober 20, 2007
Pelosi Backing Away from Stark's Smears
Seeing the damage done to the Democrats by Representative Pete Stark's statements on the House floor that the President enjoyed "blowing things up" and that heads being blown off in the Iraq War was for Bush's "amusement," Speaker Nancy Pelosi tried to distance herself and other Democrats not ready for the rubber room at St. E's from the baseless smears:
"While members of Congress are passionate about their views, what Congressman Stark said during the debate was inappropriate and distracted from the seriousness of the subject at hand - providing health care for America's children," Pelosi, D-San Francisco, said.Pelosi wanted Stark to keep his mouth shut so that the issue would be S-CHIP and not whether the California Democrat should be taken off the floor of the House in a straitjacket.
What Pelosi also meant: Stark had handed Republicans an easy way to distract the public from what Democrats view as a winning stance on the popular children's health bill. Stark, 75, declined a request Friday for an interview. "He doesn't believe that he is the story," said his spokesman, Yoni Cohen.
"He believes the story is that 10 million children are being denied health insurance."
Predictably, the netroots on the blogs were escatic, thanking the California Congressman for smearing the President with the most outrageous, unsubstantiated charges imaginable. But that's natural since both the lefty blogs and Stark could probably benefit from a night of observation at a mental health clinic.
That's the only explanation possible for the unhinged nature of their rhetoric.
