Apparently, John Garamendi, a California Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about the term ad hominem, which means attacking someone directly instead of venting criticism at that person’s position on an issue. And, even worse, apparently a key member of the liberal media didn't know it when he saw it.
Garamendi proved that while a guest on Monday’s edition of CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, when the Democrat claimed that Republicans “are terrible for the American people. Why anyone would want to go out and purposely, physically harm people, I will never understand.”
The segment began when Blitzer told his guest:
Your colleagues in the Senate -- Lamar Alexander, he's a Republican; Patty Murray, a Democrat -- they're working on some compromise health-care legislation, an interim measure.
That's what the president calls it. He was signaling today he'd be ready to go along with it. Are you willing to go along with that kind of interim measure to fix some of the problems of the Affordable Care Act?
“Absolutely,” Garamendi replied, “and we've been screaming and shouting that that be done, particularly this subsidy program.”
“That is -- it takes one line to solve that problem,” he continued. “The president says it's illegal. Well, it's before the circuit court, and nothing is illegal until the court actually rules on it.”
“But we could solve that with one simple sentence:” Funding for subsidies to health insurers is “appropriate, are authorized to be appropriated. That's all you need to do to solve that particular problem,” the Democrat added.
“Once again, we have offered amendments on the floor of the House and in the Senate to do that,” Garamendi continued, but those recommendations have been “totally rejected by the Republicans.”
It seems that Garamendi also fails to understand that elections have consequences, and the current situation with Republicans in the majority in both houses of Congress is a result of the 2016 election.
However, Blitzer didn’t challenge the Democrat’s assertion, instead allowing him to continue:
Which brings me back to the fundamental point. The problem here is not that the Democrats are not working with the Republicans. It's that, A, the Republicans refuse to even allow any Democratic solution to be included.
And secondly, the policies of the Republicans themselves are terrible for the American people. Why anyone would want to go out and purposely, physically harm people, I will never understand.
“That's precisely what their proposed legislation does,” he concluded.
At that point, Blitzer demonstrated that he is apparently in favor of the “interim measure.”
“Well, let's see if this bipartisan effort by Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray, if that can get off the ground as sort of an interim compromise on health care,” the host stated. “And I suspect you'll be ready to support that.”
“We're all in,” Garamendi replied.
“I think the president will be ready to support that as well,” Blitzer noted. “He wants a deal. He wants to show something has been accomplished, at least on an interim basis.”
As NewsBusters previously reported, this isn’t the first time Blitzer has allowed Garamendi to put forth a bizarre and unsubstantiated concept.
Back on August 23, Blitzer let the Democratic official slam the Republican occupant of the White House as “out of control” and compared Trump’s attacks on the press to tactics used by Nazi Germany.
During that interview, Blitzer asked: "Well, just to follow up, Congressman, because those are strong words: Are you suggesting the president wants to be a dictator?”
Garamendi replied: “He's certainly power hungry. There's no doubt about that. … He certainly wants to push the Congress aside. He's already taken into the judicial system by going after federal judges, and it goes on and on.”
Who knows what kind of strange notion Garamendi will put forth the next time he visits The Situation Room? Only time -- and NewsBusters -- will tell.
