October 5, 2013

There are plenty of thin skinned Republicans in Congress and in punditland, but I take special pleasure in reporting on Sen. Mike Lee. He, along with fellow Tea Party favorite Ted Cruz, helped force the federal government shutdown by running the HOUSE Republicans, and now he's whining that his GOP compadres are being too mean to him. Here he is, talking to Hugh Hewitt

HH: Now there was allegedly a Republican Senate Conference meeting earlier this week, where your colleague, Ted Cruz, took a lot of slings and arrows. Were you there, Senator Lee?

whambulance

ML: Yes, yes, I was there. And you know, normally, I don’t comment at all on closed door meetings among Republican senators. That’s a pretty strict rule we follow. The one exception I’ll make is in circumstances like this, where the contents of the meeting were leaked deliberately by several of my colleagues, and leaked in a very one-sided way, so I’m happy to tell you about it here.

HH: Please do.

ML: It was an all-out attack against Ted Cruz and me. It was unflattering, it was unfair, it was demeaning. It was demeaning to Senator Cruz and to me, but more than anything, it was demeaning to those who engaged in the attacks.

HH: How many senators rose to speak against you guys?

ML: Quite a few. Enough that I lost count. And you know, I have to ask the question. Why were those who leaked this, and leaked it in a very unflattering, unfavorable way, why were they not willing to attach their names to those quotes? Ted Cruz and I spoke after the meeting, and we both concluded we would both be fine with the American people seeing and hearing exactly what we said in that meeting, but we’re pretty sure that most of our colleagues would be very uncomfortable, and downright embarrassed if their constituents saw the way they were behaving.
HH: Did anyone rise to your defense?

ML: Sort of.

HH: Sort of?

ML: Not really. He and I, of course, rose to each other’s defense. But…and there were a couple who said some things that were somewhat conciliatory. There were a lot of people who were participating directly in the attacks, adding fuel to the fire. There were a lot of others who were staring at their shoes. But look, I want to keep the main focus here on Obamacare. We don’t need these distractions within the party. What we need is to maintain unity within the party. All Republicans in the Senate and the House, to my knowledge, do in fact oppose Obamacare. So we need to stay united in that.

Mommy, mommy, they were demeaning to me and Teddy. They unflattered us too. Keep sticking your fingers in the eyes of your colleagues and all of American and he'll forget all about this little exchange with his Senate peers.

This is the same guy who argued that child labor laws were unconstitutional.

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