So Many Republican Hypocrites, So Little Time

September 28, 2007 | SEND TO A FRIEND | GET EARLY NOTICE OF THE HOTW

Marsha Blackburn

Welcome back to the BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the Week.

It was a rare moment indeed.

P.M. Carpenter, a long-time columnist posted on BuzzFlash, took note of the historical occasion. In the most unlikely of venues, MSNBC's David Shuster, who was substituting for Tucker Carlson of all people, unrelentingly nailed a GOP Congresswoman for her hypocrisy about condemning the NYT MoveOn.org ad.

The gist of the grilling -- which you can read or view -- was that Tennessee Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn tenaciously parroted the Republican talking points attacking MoveOn.org, but she didn't know the name of the most recent GI from her district killed in Iraq. And even though it turned out that the soldier Shuster mentioned was from the district next door, you got the distinct feeling that she would be hard put to name any GI from her area who had died in Iraq, since she didn't offer any names in her defense.

If you have forgotten what the role of the press should be, Shuster's bulldog pursuit of the nut of the orchestrated attack on the Petraeus ad will remind you of what journalism should be doing. He simply wouldn't let Blackburn off the hook in terms of her assignment to smear an advocacy group, while she wasn't keeping track of the soldiers from her district dying in the Middle East.

Blackburn offered platitudes as she sneered herself into an exposed corner of hypocrisy. "When was the last time a New York Times ad ever killed somebody," Shuster asked the Republican shill who was clearly disconcerted that she wasn't being lobbed the usual unchallenging propaganda-enabling questions. "I mean, here we have a war that took the life of an 18 year old kid, Jeremy Bohannon, from your district, and you didn't even know his name."

By merely assuming the role of a journalist asking pertinent questions, Shuster appeared to do something extraordinary: expose the truth hiding under the cover of gross hypocrisy. He was so masterfully on top of the issue at hand -- and Blackburn so unprepared to speak about anything other than her RNC talking point -- that the exchange took our breath away.

What would America be like today if most interviews were conducted with this preparation and desire to peel away the layers of deception? We won't know, because the Shuster/Blackburn interview was such an isolated incident.

But we do know this, as a result, there is no doubt in our mind that Marsha Blackburn cares more about the advancement of her partisan talking points than the names of the GIs dying for a failed war that she supports from the comfort of Washington, D.C.

Until next week, remember our motto: So many Republican hypocrites, so little time.

Catch up with you soon.