I was pleasantly surprised yesterday when John McCain rose on the Senate floor to condemn Michelle Bachmann's and several other Republican House members' attacks on Huma Abedin, an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the wife of former congressman Anthony Weiner.
“Put simply, Huma represents what is best about America: the daughter of immigrants, who has risen to the highest levels of our government on the basis of her substantial personal merit and her abiding commitment to the American ideals that she embodies so fully,” McCain said. “I am proud to know Huma and to call her my friend.”
“These sinister accusations rest solely on a few unspecified and unsubstantiated associations of members of Huma’s family, none of which have been shown to harm or threaten the United States in any way,” McCain said. “These attacks on Huma have no logic, no basis and no merit. And they need to stop now."
McCain Harshly Criticizes Some House Rs For Attacks on State Dept. Official
Bachmann and some other fools have claimed that Huma Abedin is part of a secret plot by the Muslim Brotherhood to infiltrate the governement, and, yes, impose sharia law.
These are insane bigots.
Today, Ed Rollins, former campaign manager of Ronald Reagan's run for president and of Michelle Bachmann's ill-fated presidential campaign last year, writes on FoxNews and condemns Bachmann's actions as "extreme," "dishonest," "vicious" and reaching the level of Joe McCarthy:
I have been a practitioner of tough politics for many decades. There is little that amazes me and even less that shocks me. I have to say that Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s outrageous and false charges against a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin reaches that threshold.
Her unsubstantiated charge against Abedin, a widely respected top aide to Secretary Hillary Clinton, accusing her of some sort of far-fetched connection to the Muslim brotherhood, is extreme and dishonest.
Having worked for Congressman Bachman’s campaign for president, I am fully aware that she sometimes has difficulty with her facts, but this is downright vicious and reaches the late Senator Joe McCarthy level.
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The Republican Party, which John McCain led as our nominee in 2008, is going to become irrelevant if we become the party of intolerance and hate.
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As a member of Congress, with a seat on the House Intelligence Committee, Mrs. Bachmann you know better. Shame on you, Michele! You should stand on the floor of the House and apologize to Huma Abedin and to Secretary Clinton and to the millions of hard working, loyal, Muslim Americans for your wild and unsubstantiated charges.
Ed Rollins rips 'extreme' Michele Bachmann
John McCain and Ed Rollins stood up for decency and against the new McCarthyism. She crossed a line over which they could not go.
The total silence from Mitt Romney on this is deafining. It speaks volumes about the modern Republican Party.