January 16, 2018

If there was one recurring theme I heard over and over Monday morning on cable news following the disgusting performances of Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue on the Sunday gab fests, it's that everyone was shocked!... shocked I tell you that members of the Senate would toss aside the "decorum" and lie about one of their counterparts the way Cotton and Perdue did with Dick Durbin.

That type of behavior is supposed to be reserved for House members, don't ya know.

While they generally don't come on the air and attack each other by name, they're no better than their counterparts in the House when it comes to making appearances on television and just telling bald faced lies. They lie about Trump. They lie about their tax cuts and who they benefit. They lie about Iran. They lie about Hillary Clinton and President Obama. They lie about health care. They lie about Social Security. They lie about torture.

And they're going to continue to lie because there's no penalty for it. The media isn't going to quit inviting them onto their shows for interviews just because they came on and lied. They'll never get taken to task or called on the carpet for a lie they told the week before. They let their lies pass with little or no follow up when they do tell them, so why should any of them care?

Their Dear Leader lies just about every time his lips are moving, or when his teeny tiny hands are typing furiously and posting something on Twitter, yet the media just shrugs and says, oh well.. that's just Trump and the new "normal" we've all got to get used to.

So spare me the newfound feigned shock that these guys lied the way they did about Durbin. Anymore, what would be more shocking is if any of them were capable of making it through a five or ten minute interview on television and told the truth the whole time.

The video above is just one example, and A.B. Stoddard wasn't the only one out there expressing the same sentiments about how terribly sad it is that these supposedly better behaved Senators are acting just like their House counterparts. I hate to break it to them, but the issue isn't what branch of government they're from. The problem is they're Republicans, and these days that equals being an unabashed liar.

Transcript via CNN:

CUOMO: Let's bring in some guests. We've got CNN contributor and "Washington Post" national reporter Wes Lowery; and RealClearPolitics associate editor and columnist A.B. Stoddard.

A.B., what do you make of the suggestion that the House versus whole controversy is just a distraction? You now have two GOP senators, one of them a decorated veteran, basically coming to the president's defense. Nobody denies the comparison that he drew, saying, "Why do we need people from Haiti and Africa," who I'm terming brown people, because I saw this as a brown versus white thing. I know we just met with the minister -- the prime minister of Norway, but he brought up that contrast. It seemed pretty obvious why. Nobody denies that comparison. What is this all about?

A.B. STODDARD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, REALCLEARPOLITICS: This is really, if you look back, Chris, over the last couple of days with this, starting on Thursday night, this unbelievable scare in Hawaii and now two U.S. senators accusing another one of lying.

Just imagine the perspective of friends and foe all around the world looking at the United States the last 72 hours, even in this time of peak tribalism and hyper-partisanship, the accusations by Senator Cotton and Senator Perdue that Senator Durbin is lying when there is a difference between just "s-house" and "s-hole" is really extraordinary. There are so many ways they could have tried to protect the president and said, "I didn't really hear that."

But they went on. It's not just this word. Perdue said, "This is a gross misrepresentation" of what was said at the meeting.

Senator Cotton said he didn't hear any derogatory comments about the individuals or persons. That is not the case. It is absolutely staggering that it has gone on. This is the kind of thing that senators accuse House members of doing, of treating each other this way. And the fact that they would do this when Senator Graham told Senator Scott and Senator Flake. There are so many other people that have corroborated this. The White House has not denied it. It's just absolutely staggering to me that they would do that.

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