ONCE MORE WITH FEELING: The governor’s avoidance of criticizing a dangerous nutcase was an embarrassment, but ignored by state media.
Sorry, but once more with feeling on Governor Hutchinson’s head-smacking avoidance of repudiating the violent insurrectionist who’s a Republican member of Congress from Georgia, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Because of a near-total absence of Arkansas coverage, I re-up what I wrote here yesterday by providing the verbatim response from Hutchinson when asked about Greene on a national ABC news program:
Martha Raddatz: And one more question about a member of congress, a new Republican member of congress, trump loyalist Marjorie Taylor Greene, she’s long embraced conspiracy theories like qanon, voiced support for executing Nancy Pelosi, is she fit to serve and should she be on the education committee?
Hutchinson: Well, that’s — first of all, the people of her district elected her, that should mean a lot, they elected her and she’s going to run for re-election and she’ll be accountable for what she said and her actions. And then —
Raddatz: Given her history, is she fit to serve?
Hutchinson: I’m not going to answer that question as to whether she’s fit to serve because she believes in something that everybody else does not accept, I reject that, but she’s going to stand for re-election. I don’t think we ought to punish people from a disciplinary standpoint, a party standpoint, because they think something a little bit different. We got to make sure that we don’t divide our party. I’m more troubled by someone going in and opposing Liz Cheney because she took a different position than many others in the party, that’s the kind of thing that tears our party apart. We need to not start primarying everyone because we don’t like how they handle things post-election.
Raddatz: But governor, you say you shouldn’t go after someone because they think of something a little bit different, she believes in conspiracy theories, that there are pedophiles running Washington.
Hutchinson: I reject that. I would not vote for her. I would not vote for her. The second question is, should the house of representatives make a disciplinary call on her? I’m not going to get in the middle of that. They’re going to have to make that judgment. But when you have a broad diversity of a party, you reject the extreme elements, it’s not mainstream GOP, and that’s what we’ve got to get back to, we’ve got to have a regard for those people who supported Donald Trump. We want — because they have a message, they have a concern, but at the same time, we don’t want to gloss over the terrible actions that happened at the capitol. We need to hold people accountable for that, that is critically important.
Party unity is more important than castigating a fully baked nutcake who’s seemingly endorsed putting a bullet in the head of the House speaker? Criticizing Liz Cheney is worse than criticizing an insurrectionist?
“A little bit different?”
Exactly how far would you have to go before a belief would qualify in Hutchinson’s mind as something more than “something that everybody else does not accept.” If assassination doesn’t qualify, what in God’s name does?
Hutchinson’s comments drew national attention. I’ve seen no coverage of Hutchinson’s appearance on ABC by Arkansas-based media, apart from COVID-19 comments. Please advise me If I missed them.
Here’s what David Cay Johnston, a prize-winning former New York Times reporter said on Raw Story:
Let’s put in perspective the atrocious conduct of freshman lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene, the pistol-toting Congresswoman from Georgia who wants to put a bullet in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s head.
Any decent human being would get a court order to keep Greene from walking around with a gun in her purse.
But Greene is special because she works in the people’s House. Under our Constitution, she can’t be fired. She can, however, be expelled.
Republicans don’t have the decency to expel a member with murder, bigotry and anti-Semitism in her heart, a weapon in her purse and a desire to overthrow the government in which she serves.
Our Constitution requires a two-thirds majority vote to expel Greene. That will happen only if 59 of the 211 House Republicans have the basic human decency to expel a member with murder, religious bigotry and anti-Semitism in her heart, a lethal weapon in her purse and a stated desire to overthrow the government in which she serves.
A former Congressman and Homeland Security chief who now is the governor of Arkansas doesn’t want to talk about it. He clearly wouldn’t vote to expel her. I expect no better from Reps. French Hill, Bruce Westerman, Steve Womack and Rick Crawford. Especially not seditionist Crawford.
And major media in Arkansas — looking at you Democrat-Gazette — don’t think these comments were newsworthy?
