U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning predicted over the weekend that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would likely be dead from pancreatic cancer within nine months.
During a wide-ranging 30-minute speech on Saturday at the Hardin County Republican Party's Lincoln Day Dinner, Bunning said he supports conservative judges "and that's going to be in place very shortly because Ruth Bader Ginsburg … has cancer."
"Bad cancer. The kind that you don't get better from," he told a crowd of about 100 at the old State Theater.
"Even though she was operated on, usually, nine months is the longest that anybody would live after (being diagnosed) with pancreatic cancer," he said.
Aside from the fact that it's at the very least in poor taste to make pronouncements of prognosis for those stricken with cancer, Bunning has his facts wrong. Yes, pancreatic cancer is a devastating diagnosis, and its prognosis is poor. But you just don't say "Oh, you'll be dead inside of a year." Because the fact is that no one knows. Right now the most famous pancreatic cancer sufferer is actor Patrick Swayze, and not only is he still working just shy of a year in diagnosis, he's signed a book deal doing well enough for the press to be having the vapors because he's still smoking.
But this is how the Republicans operate, isn't it? Everything is about their power -- getting it, keeping it, regaining it. It's party über alles for these guys, and it doesn't matter whom they have to stomp into the ground or how far into the gutter they have to go. Whether it's elevating the lies of racist kooks into mainstream discourse or invoking the long-dead Cold War or saying that if you aren't marching in lockstep with the Republicans you're a terrorist, I think over the last eight years and even into today, we've seen what these people are made of. And it isn't compassion, it isn't humanity. This party, and the people who are attracted to it, are about the worst of human nature -- about meanness, petty grudges, lust for power, greed, and for all their talk about morality, the leaders of this party are about utter lack of accountability. It is the Republican Party that is all about id -- the unfettered id of the infant, screaming for its wants and not at all understanding the word "no" or even the word "later." Republicanism is like being a two-year-old in a supermarket, wanting not just one colorful box of cereal, but all of them -- and wanting it now, and making everyone's lives miserable until they get it.
I hope this country can handle having adults in charge and isn't it in a hurry to give it back to the two-year-old throwing the tantrum in Aisle Seven.
UPDATE: Bunning has issued one of those patented Republican non-apology apologies:
“I apologize if my comments offended Justice Ginsburg,” Bunning, a Kentucky Republican, said in a statement released by his office. “That certainly was not my intent. It is great to see her back at the Supreme Court today and I hope she recovers quickly. My thoughts and prayers are with her and her family.”
How about "I apologize for being a nasty insensitive asshole"? Why make it conditional on Ginsburg being offended?
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