Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Tea Party Candidate: Stop Telling People What I Said!

Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle is well-known for some nutty and some ominous statements, such as this one:

“You know, our Founding Fathers, they put that second amendment in there for a good reason and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. And in fact, Thomas Jefferson said it’s good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years.”“I hope that’s not where we’re going, but, you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying, ‘my goodness what can we do to turn this country around?’ I’ll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out.”

She later retracted the statement--sort of. But she hasn't backed off on her suggestion that her followers might engage in armed insurrection if they don't get their way.

But now, it seems that Angle is threatening to sue the Reid campaign--for reposting what she said on her own Website.

After the former state Rep won Nevada's Republican Senate primary, Angle's campaign took down most of its website, and later replaced it with a relaunched version that in some ways toned down her right-wing rhetoric. But Internet pages are rarely ever forgotten -- the Reid
campaign saved the old version, and put up a website called "The Real Sharron Angle," reproducing the old content.


Then, they say, the Angle campaign sent them a cease-and-desist letter, claiming misuse of copyrighted materials in the reposting of the old website -- which was, of course, being posted for the purposes of ridiculing Angle. The Reid campaign has in fact taken down the site, rerouting visitors to another website that goes after Angle's positions, "Sharron's Underground Bunker."

This is the thing about the TPers: the only way they think they can win is by concealing how nutty most of them really are. And they're willing to go to court to hide what they themselves have said, and to hide their nuttier beliefs until its too late. Fortunately, that's harder and harder to do in the age of the Internet.

9 comments:

Jim Hetley said...

Well, the Founding Fathers did seem to think that a revolution was a good idea. And Jefferson did say that the Tree of Liberty needed to be watered with blood, now and then . . .

Mark Terry said...

I like the way the teabaggers like to quote T. Jefferson on that statement to support their nuttiness, when Jefferson was basically applauding the French Revolution, which some of the other founding fathers, esp. John Adams, thought was going to get out of hand and lead to something really ugly--which it did, Napoleon Bonaparte.

David Terrenoire said...

This reminds me of the 80's when the Christian Coalition would purposely launch stealth candidates, people who didn't reveal their Christian fucktard beliefs because they knew they could never get elected if they did.

That led to a lot of crazies being elected to school boards, county seats and state capitals.

It was a dark time and in many places, it still is.

KateH said...

The quote was about Shay's Rebellion, not the French Revolution. A short, but well written piece in the Huffington Post from when the lunatic came to a town hall meeting with the incomplete and misunderstood quote on a sign, is at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-horwitz/thomas-jefferson-and-the_b_273800.html

Unknown said...

Do these folks seriously think that no one will remember the lies and craziness? Or do they just not care?

JD Rhoades said...

They need the crazy to get through the primaries, but then have to tack to the center to win the general. It's an old tactic, but it's harder to pull off when you start off at their level of crazy.

Gerard Saylor said...

I am as fond of T. Jefferson as anyone but I don't remember Charlie Hood saying any of those things.

Sylvia said...

Hmmm,anybody remember, We're going to have transparency, we'll have these debates on CSPAN, so everyone can see what we're doing.

JD Rhoades said...

SO he finally had a debate on CSpan and the Republicans derided it as a publicity stunt. So what's your point?