Potential title of Tom Wolfe novel with protagonist based on Congressman Alan Grayson, Democrat of Florida -- A Man in Fulsome.
Rachel Maddow had just introduced Grayson on her MSNBC show Monday night and what does he do? Disparages the size of her audience.
Maddow was talking about Florida Republicans gearing up to unseat Grayson --
MADDOW: I know that two of the people who are going to run against you are tea party activists ...
GRAYSON: That's right.
MADDOW: ... Patricia Sullivan and Dan Fanelli. I'm helping them out with their name recognition right now. What do you ...
GRAYSON (laughing): Well, good, now four people know them instead of two.
Be fair, congressman. There are also Maddow's relatives, plus several of us at NewsBusters who cringe through her polemics on a regular basis. That makes at least a dozen viewers.
This was minor compared to the doozy that followed --
GRAYSON: There's nobody in the race right now who actually is known at all, but they're not the ones I'm worried about. I'm worried about the national party. The national Republican Party spent over $2 million to keep me out of office last time and now, according to the NRCC's executive director, I'm their number-one target, and you know why. So I can only imagine how much 30 pieces of silver they're going to throw this time at the race.
You know, like when I last descended from heaven to redeem humanity.
In fairness to Grayson, he did cut loose with a perceptive remark that's hard to refute --
MADDOW: I mean, this is the question -- why is there no native challenger to you?
GRAYSON: There's no native challenger because people like a congressman with guts. They like someone who says it like it is and in particular they like a Democrat who says it like it is. I mean, a Democrat with guts, many people think of it as some sort of mythological creature like a unicorn.
There's a word for that type of Democrat -- he or she is called a Republican. To find a Democrat so inclined, one would look not through mythology but American history instead, as far back as JFK and possibly Truman.
