Last Thursday, we told you about Renee Ellmers, the Tea Party Republican who’s running for Bob Ethreridge’s congressional seat — she began her campaign against Etheridge with what we called “a xenophobic, factually incorrect, not to mention dumb-as-a-rock ignorant, commercial about the Islamic center scheduled to be built a couple of blocks from the site of the Twin Towers attacks — or, as Ellmers likes to call it, the victory mosque at Ground Zero.” (Funny how the anti-mosque people never mention that there was a Muslim prayer room at Ground Zero on 9/11).
Friday night, CNN’s Anderson Cooper interviewed Ellmers, and took her to task for deliberately equating Islam and terrorism. Ellmers, in the end, reverted to asking Cooper if he was “anti-Christian in your thinking,” to which the CNN host, to his credit, replied, “That is the lowest response I have ever heard from a candidate, I have got to tell you.” It’s worth checking out below, if only to see firsthand the kind of candidates the Tea Partiers offer the nation (think Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell, not to mention their godmama, La Palin): fervent, self-satisfied, empty-eyed ignoramuses who couldn’t think straight if their lives depended on it.
Note: John Grooms will be part of the Tribute to Novello Festival, Friday at 7pm at the Levine Museum of the New South. Here’s the festival’s schedule.
This article appears in Sep 28 – Oct 4, 2010.
I too heard the interview. Whether you agree about her comments, Cooper’s rudeness, his interupting and the injection of his personal bias into the supposed interview was unacceptable.
This confrontational journalism mirrors and exacerbates the harshness that has become a part of our social fabric.
Chuck Grantham, Publisher
If you want to cut all ties to the people who committed the crime on 9/11 you had better go after Saudi Arabia. That is where 3/4 of the terrorists who attacked us were from.
This woman is a bigot and, like most Republicans, makes up her own reality to support her fear mongering.
Responding to Chuck G., wouldn’t you say that it’s a wee bit more important that such an ignorant flake as R. Ellmers has a shot at being in Congress than A. Cooper’s interview manners?
With the exception of a limited few, I think your description: “fervent, self-satisfied, empty-eyed ignoramuses who couldn’t think straight if their lives depended on it” pretty much sums up every single congressperson and senator in the house and senate today.
Wow, reading your piece I assumed this video made Ellmers look bad and made Cooper look good. Quite the opposite – he looks like a fool, emotionally unstable and like he is too personally invested in this somehow to report honestly here. Ellmers understands the issue, answers all questions and she makes him look like a petulant child whose mother isn’t letting him get his way. This is precisely why the Democrats will lose the House in November. They don’t understand what is important. Go Renee!
“Ellmers understands the issue”?! What damned universe are you tea party jackasses living in? Or, more likely, what in hell have you been drinking? “Ellmers understands the issue” – freakin classic. Ellmers basically MAKES UP a phony issue that is so far beyond uninformed that it’s like a caricature of so many conservatives’ blind view of the world — but that’s OK, because she “understands” her own non-issue.
VM, aka Frank, your boys may win the House in November, but it’ll only be a repeat of the Gingrich years — 2 years of crooked disfunction, and out of there. In the meantime, though, for Americans with better sense than to vote for the tea parties’ dimwit candidates, it will feel as if they’re living in a house where the cockroaches have taken over.
OUR CONSTITUTION IS UNDER ATTACK
The “Victory Mosque” is truly a victory, but not in the sense Renee Ellmers thinks it is. It is a victory for the defenders of the Constitution. During this ensuing heated election season, one of the first questions we must ask every person running for public office, “Are you prepared to swear that you will defend the Constitution of the United State, without equivocation or reservation?” Ellmers has already demonstrated her answer is “no”. To question construction of the mosque because it violates the “sacred soil” of “Ground Zero,” prompts me to ask: “Which is more sacred, “Ground Zero” or the U.S. Constitution?”
Many persons may challenge the motives behind the selection of the site for the mosque. Nothing in the Constitution establishes Ground Zero as sacred shrine. However, regardless of motive, the First Amendment is very specific in protecting the “free exercise” of religion and certainly building a church, a synagogue, a mosque, or a temple is to “exercise” one’s faith It is very distressing that “Tea Party” members, their candidates and current and former members of Congress who stress the importance of our Constitution, seek to deny the mosque’s construction in deference to the Congressional oath of office: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”
The opponents claim that they are defending the Constitution because Americans who practice the Muslim religion are the “enemies, foreign and domestic” not only makes a mockery of the oath’s pledge “without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion” but also makes a mockery of Article VI of the Constitution that defends the values of candidates for public office stating that all government leaders “both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”
Today our Constitution is under attack from candidates, Tea Baggers and naïve followers who wrap themselves in the Constitution while shouting down its basic principles that makes our nation so great.
VM:
You seem to live in the loony alternate reality of the Tea Party lemmings.
To you, interrupting her to correct something she said that was factually wrong is makes him look like a petulant child whose mother isn’t letting him get his way.
It is YOU who is acting like the petulant child.
Open your eyes. You are supporting a bunch of fools.
I wish there were Death Panels for people like VM. They’re only making America dumber.
Responding to Mr. Grooms from Chuck G: You do have a small point in that Cooper’s bias is far less important than who gets elected to Congress.
However, calling her an ignorant flake is a little naive on your part. May I please suggest you do your homework before labelling her as such. A short reading list for you would include Bernard Lewis’ “Crisis of Islam”, Samuel P. Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” and Christopher Caldwell’s poignant iteration of what has happened to and in Europe called ” Reflections on the Revolution in Europe.” These three are accepted scholars who have studied Islam and come to the same conclusions that “ignorant flake” Ellmers has.
I’m always a little troubled by the use of strong language such as yours. Just a little food for thought and direction for you so that you don’t continue to embarrass yourself.