I got some interesting mail this week. One was from someone who doesn’t read my column but didn’t like something I wrote and told me so. That response reminded me of a 4-page letter I once got from the late Speaker of the House Tom Murphy when I said his political career was “toast” after he had barely won reelection. (He lost the next one.)
The Speaker told me he had never read a word I had written and then scalded my hide, leaving me to wonder why he was jumping my frame if he hadn’t read what I had written. Never question readers who don’t read your column.
Sometimes people send me my column that was printed in the paper telling me what I said. I think that indicates they did in fact read it. It doesn’t mean in fact they liked it. For example, when I recently referred to Cong. Marjorie Taylor Greene as a “nutcase,” that brought a quick response from one of her supporters who sent me my column with “nutcase” underlined in the column in case I might have missed it and said it was a stupid remark. The reader suggested (maybe “demanded” is a better word) that I apologize to Greene for my disrespect.
I appreciate the thought but if I have to apologize every time I say something somebody doesn’t like, I wouldn’t have time to think up all these stupid remarks. My job is hard enough as it is.
As for apologies, Greene owes a whopping big one to the Jewish people. It seems she equates wearing a mask during the pandemic to the yellow badges which Jews had to wear in Nazi Germany.
“They were definitely treated like second-class citizens, so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany,” she intoned, “and this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about.” Excuse me? Being asked to wear a mask during a pandemic is like wearing the Jewish ‘badge of shame?” Six million Jews are estimated to have been killed in Nazi Germany between 1941-1945 and she gets to go home every night. And I should apologize to her?
Kevin McCarthy, Republican minority leader in the U.S. House said, “Marjorie is wrong and her intentional decision to compare the horrors of the Holocaust with wearing masks is appalling. The Holocaust is the greatest atrocity committed in history. The fact that this needs to be stated today is troubling.”
Newly-minted House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik said that “equating mask wearing and vaccines to the Holocaust belittles the most significant human atrocities ever committed.” No kidding.
Of course, none of this is Greene’s fault. It’s the media and the Democrats and now the Republicans, not to mention Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Green Jeans. She says her words were “twisted.” Well, she shouldn’t have said them in the first place. Can’t twist them if you don’t say them.
Greene is all about Greene. She has no influence in Congress. Zero. She is on no committees which is where legislation gets done. She couldn’t pass gas. All she can do is say outrageous things that appeal to her base. (You tell ‘em, Marge! Wahoo!”)
So why is she there? My educated guess is that she is eyeing higher office. In the first quarter of 2021, Greene raised $3.2 million, according to her campaign. Three million dollars in the bank to run for re-election in the 14th congressional district of Georgia? I doubt that.
Being a member of Congress can be a steppingstone to running for governor or U.S. Senate. She doesn’t need to be effective for her constituents, just loud and raucous for her base.
Comparing the wearing of a mask during a pandemic to Jewish oppression in Nazi Germany is beyond the pale. It is also insensitive, insulting and irresponsible. Greene can’t blame this one on the media. She said it, she owns it.
Here’s a thought: Camden County is proposing to build a commercial spaceport on the coast in Woodbine. They have a lot of regulatory hoops to jump through before they start launching rockets into space but when they do, if we can’t find our Ambassador to Outer Space Cynthia McKinney, I am going to suggest Marjorie Taylor Greene. She wouldn’t have to wear a mask and the rest of us wouldn’t have to put up with her hyperbole. Now wouldn’t that be out of this world!
You can reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@dickyarbrough.com; at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139 or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/dickyarb
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