A Challenge to the False Equivalency Folks

As the Republican party has become more and more irresponsible, it has become fashionable for its defenders to argue from equivalency: sure, there are some loony-tune legislators who are Republican, but there are equally demented Democrats. Both sides do it, so it’s not fair to single out the GOP examples.

Now, there is an element of truth to this. Certainly, there are rabid ideologues on both the left and right. But no fair-minded observer can deny that for sheer lunacy, the Republicans win in a walk. They have depth and breadth. (Lest you think it’s confined to Michelle Bachman and Louie Gohmert, let me assure you they have an absolutely formidable bench.)

For example, I’d never previously heard of Florida Congressman Ted Yoho.

Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) recently told a group of constituents that he backing a birther bill because he hoped that it would “get rid of everything” that President Barack Obama had done, and then added that the president’s “racist” health care law forced white people to pay more to use tanning beds.

The Florida Republican continued: “I had an Indian doctor in our office the other day, very dark skin, with two non-dark skin people, and I asked this to him, I said, ‘Have you ever been to a tanning booth?’ and he goes, ‘No, no need.’ So therefore it’s a racist tax and I thought I might need to get to a sun tanning booth so I can come out and say I’ve been disenfranchised because I got taxed because of the color of my skin.”

I defy anyone to find a Democrat who can match that for idiocy or racism. And this guy isn’t even one of the GOP’s usual subjects!

As Juanita Jean, who blogs from the World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Parlor, accurately notes, if there wasn’t a tax on tanning beds, that would mean that President Obama is encouraging everybody to become dark skinned like him or the Muslims. Because he’d be trying to turn us all black!

These folks are just obsessed with the President’s skin color. Too bad they aren’t equally invested in stuff like–oh, I don’t know… logic. Or coherent thought. Or public policy, although asking  that they actually do the jobs they were elected to do and stop their single-minded obsession with preventing Obama from doing anything may be too great a stretch.

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