Scott Brown Calls For End To Intimidation, Threats

[Niels Bohr 72]

In the Capitol moments ago, I happened to buttonhole Senator Scott Brown, darling of the national Tea Party movement, and he strongly condemned the threats and intimidation that health reform foes are directing at Dems who supported it.

“Any type of intimidation is completely unacceptable,” Brown told me. “That’s what makes America so good is that we can go to the ballot box. And that’s what I’d encourage people to do to vent their anger in a positive way, instead of doing things that are bad form.”

Brown sidestepped, however, when asked whether some of the rhetoric about reform coming from prominent GOP officials had helped create a climate fostering the intimidation, as Dems have been insisting. He also demurred when I asked whether Republican officials had done enough to quell the violence.

“I really don’t know what other people are saying, so it’s not for me to comment on,” he said.

The Dem party committees have been working hard to pin the scattered intimidation on GOP leaders, with party officials even scouring the local papers for ways of blaming violence on Republican officials. GOP leaders such as John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and now Brown have already condemned the violence.

The whole thing is reminiscent of the summer, when Dem officials worked hard to elevate the town hall “mobs” in order to blame the unruly behavior on GOP rhetoric. It’s unclear, however, whether that effort did anything more than create a general sense in the public mind that the health care bill was deeply unpopular, and it’s equally unclear whether the current effort will accomplish anything more than that this time around.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Good for him. One of the few with a conscience.