The Hill reports that the Republicans are making absolutely no adjustments in reaction to the Tucson Massacre:
“The Pledge to America is our plan,” Kevin Smith, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), told The New York Times Thursday, “and our immediate focus is on addressing the top priorities of the American people, creating jobs, cutting spending and reforming the way Congress works.”
The strategy is indication that, while the assassination attempt on Giffords might have prompted a weeklong breather from the bitter legislative fights the new Congress has in store, GOP leaders have no plans to let the temporary outpouring of bipartisanship divert them from the course they plotted beforehand.
That doesn’t mean that the Republicans aren’t demonstrating their trademark bedwetting cowardice:
Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) wants the House gallery to be shielded in plexiglass. And Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.), the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, intends to introduce legislation prohibiting people from carrying guns within 1,000 feet of members of Congress.
Dan Burton is awfully brave when he’s armed in his backyard and faces nothing more threatening than a gourd-like squash. But he’s afraid that someone will slip past the Capitol Police and shoot him on the House floor. Pete King likes to talk a lot of smack about Muslim-Americans but he wants special protection from gun violence as he walks around his district. I thought there was no greater honor than to die for your country. I think Martin Luther King Day is a good day to denounce false bravado. Some people are willing to put their lives on the line and others want to hide behind plexiglass. This is what Dr. King said the day before he died.
And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?
Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
The only mountaintop that the Republicans know is mountaintop removal.
