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March 05, 2010 07:22 PM UTC

Tell Us How You Really Feel, Shawn Mitchell

  • 29 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

Sen. Shawn Mitchell is reliable about casting Republican image and message problems in embarrassingly sharp relief, often with a Beavis and Butthead flair that nobody else can quite match. Yesterday, he served up another fine object lesson–the Denver Post reports:

Democrats ripped state Sen. Shawn Mitchell on Thursday after he referred to a colleague as “Sen. OneYear,” implying Bruce Whitehead, D-Hesperus, is going to lose his upcoming election.

They said Mitchell’s comment was uncalled for and amounted to electioneering, which shouldn’t happen on the Senate floor.

“Sen. Mitchell, that is a pattern with you,” said Sen. Moe Keller, D-Wheat Ridge.

She noted that he recently shouted “Coward!” at another senator and the Senate president during a debate on tax credits.

And Sen. Morgan Carroll, D-Aurora, said the Senate “is not a campaign office.”

“The mere fact that we are making flip electoral threats of sort while we are having public-policy discussion is never going to be appropriate,” she said.

Mitchell, a Broomfield Republican, said he had already acknowledged his remark was inappropriate.

“However, the line that I crossed was of being frivolous. It had nothing to do with mocking the man or his name or taking away his good reputation,” Mitchell said…

Democrats are correct that this kind of clearly election-fixated jab has no place in a legislative debate. The problem is that in order to concede that, Republicans would have to own up to the fact that virtually every legislative debate this session has devolved into exactly the same kind of election year posturing–they just didn’t always invoke it as bluntly as Mitchell did.

Much like the federal debates over legislation this year, Colorado Republicans are consciously taking the risk that turning every debate over policy into an electioneering vehicle, as they have eagerly done, will backfire with the voting public. They seem to view this as an acceptable risk, with the reward being continued buildup of popular angst they can ride to victory in November.

All we can say is, it had better work than Jim Bunning’s plan did, which fell apart in shame when he got a little too–key point here–obvious about it.

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29 thoughts on “Tell Us How You Really Feel, Shawn Mitchell”

  2. “He also argued that he shouted “coward” only after his microphone had been turned off during debate”

    Well duh, Shawn.  I would assume that if your microphone hadn’t been turned off you would have used your indoor voice.

  4. Maybe the legislature can adopt rules that impose a 1% vote deduction for flagrant electioneering while the legislature is in session.  Your party forfeits one percent of their vote totals in that race.  I doubt it would deter Republicans who are always convinced that the majority thinks like they do but it would be fun to see the fireworks.

    Republicans will probably see this decline in civility is good PR with the hate government tea party extremists.  Being rude and disrespectful defines their movement.

    On the other hand if a Democrat were to utter such crudeness you can be sure that Republicans would immediately demand an apology and howl like rabid dogs about the breach in decorum like when Obama dissed the Supreme Court decision in his State of the Union address.  Nothing says double standard like a Republican politician.

  5. are Republican elected officials really more prone to screaming insults (“You lie”!, “Sen. OneYear”), profanity (Cheney’s f– you, Bunnings “tough sh–) and, in the case of Doug Bruce, delivering a terrible twos kick in the shins?  At least, I guess, “using your words”, as pre-school through elementary school teachers now advise, is better than that but those aren’t generally the kind of words recommended.  

    1. Bloggers on Pols often resort to name calling, profanity and show a decided lack of civility.  Since most of you are D’s are you confining your criticism to Republican elected officials only?  Harry Truman and Lindon Johnson were known for using colorful language.

      1. I’m speaking of the past several years. And I’m not talking about private salty language but public profanities and insults and those let loose on the floor. Also was applying no standard, just making an observation. I’d love to hear about the last time a Colorado State Dem kicked somebody or even just denigrated a fellow legislator with a snotty insult on the House or Senate Floor, for starters.  

      2. is the standard in blogs Ellie.  It isn’t in an elected legislative body.

        I really had high hopes that you would be “The One” to show us that conservatives can be clever and nimble with their minds.  This is now the second time that you have used the “It’s OK because they do it” excuse.  The last one was the hypocrisy of McInnis criticizing Hickenlooper for not paying bribe money for Frontier employee jobs.  You never did cite one example of Hickenlooper caught in a hypocrisy even though you used it as an excuse for McInnis.  If you are going to be constantly using the “It’s OK because they do it” excuse every time a conservative is caught doing flagrantly stupid things then your reputation didn’t match up with your skills.  Any dunderhead conservative can say “It’s OK because they do it”.  You’re suppose to be special and either admit that the man was being disrespectful to the legislative process or show us how making such inappropriate comments is good for the state.

        At this point, my inclination is a thumbs down on this experiment.  You haven’t shown anything resembling clever or imaginative dialogue that would want us to sit up with little star bursts in our eyes and say “wow what a brilliant conservative mind”.

        Blogs are suppose to be rough and tumble places where people go for entertainment and give as good as they get.  The legislature is suppose to be a place where democracy works out solutions to our most pressing problems.  Surely even a dull conservative like you can see the difference.

        Repartee to you.

        1. I’m not a conservative thinker as most of my friends (D,U & R) will tell you. I am a moderate voter who advocates for Scott because I believe he will be an excellent governor. Scott is a conservative and we haven’t always agreed on specific bills/issues but then I worked for a Democrat governor and we didn’t always agree but he was an excellent boss and leader.

          I personally think profanity and the lack of civility is part and parcel of why American’s are disenchanted with our elected officials.  I also think a popular blog like CoPols which I enjoy for the most part should lead by example.  

          1. but you never did condemn Mitchell for his comments and instead tried to divert the conversation away from improper behavior by Republicans in the legislature by attempting to say that it is really about Pols.  It is a weak argument Ellie and an logical fallacy.  It is classified as a “Red Herring” fallacy in the study of logic.

            http://www.nizkor.org/features…

            “A Red Herring is a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue. The basic idea is to “win” an argument by leading attention away from the argument and to another topic.”

            I agree with the civility part but would say that by and large the shouting at town hall meetings and the profanity in Congress (Cheney, Bunning, et al) are almost exclusively conservatives.  I would also go as far as to say the disenchantment is due to conservatives failing to live up to their obligation to work for better solutions instead of just getting elected.  Mitchell is the canary in the coal mine alerting us to how polluted the Republican Party has become.  You can claim that both sides are guilty but the facts show the preponderance of incivility is largely conservative in origin.

      1. That’s garbage.

        That pilot quoted the Communist Manifesto, lamented the lack of universal health care, and railed against Bush in his suicide writing.

        Totally unrepresentative of Republicans, as much as you’d like that to be true.

        1. Where were you a year and a half ago? There was hardly a Republican running for anything who wasn’t railing against Bush, and they’re still slipping in digs whenever the massive Bush deficits comes up.

          You’re right, it’s more complicated than simple party lines. But which side of the political spectrum is drumming up this anti-government fervor? Which brand of politicians are urging followers to be armed and dangerous?

            1. I agreed with you that it’s more complicated than simple party lines. But it’s disingenuous to ignore which party is sidling up to the extremists who share views with this guy.

                1. “Communist and socialist governments that abolished or disregarded private property,” said Bedell in the recording, “created poverty, repression and murder on a truly enormous scale.” But, he continued, “Even in the United States, however, there has been a continual erosion of protection of private property justified by the belief that government is an efficient instrument for the positive direction of society.”

                  and these

                  Bedell also denounced the monetary system, a frequent bete noir of anti-government extremists. “When the government can control how private property is used,” he said, “and especially when the government controls the monetary system that is use to exchange private property, the government has the mechanisms and the motivation to control individuals to the smallest detail.”

                  Bedell even railed against the concept of public education. “Government control of the schools that shape minds is pervasive in today’s world,” he said. “The imperative to defend the freedom of conscience must lead us to eliminate the role of the government in education and leave parents and communities free to raise their children as they see fit.” He denounced public education as “no more legitimate than a government-run church for universal religious training.”

                  1. This criminal organization would use its powers to convert military, intelligence, and law enforcement bureaucracies into instruments for political control, and the domination and subjection of society, while discrediting, destroying, and murdering honest individuals within those services, that work to root out corruption, and faithfully serve their fellow citizens. This organization, like so many murderous governments throughout history, would see the sacrifice of thousands of its citizens in an event such as the September 11 attacks, as a small cost in order to perpetuate its barbaric control. This collection of gangsters would find it in their interest to foment conflict and initiate wars throughout the world, in order to divert attention from their misconduct and criminality. The true nature of such a regime would find its clearest expression in the satanic violence currently ongoing in Iraq.

                    That sounds like something I’d read….never mind.

            2. Both the next Reagan Scott Brown (R-MA) and Steve King (R-IA) empathized with Stack and his hatred for the government of the United States.  No Democratic politicians even attempted to rationalize this act of terrorism.  Sorry LB, Stack might not have been a card carrying Republican but it was Republican politicians who carried his water and supported his view that destroying our government would be a good thing.  Oh and Brown won the Massachusetts Senate by posing as someone who would get tough on terrorism.  Just another Republican hypocrite.  What else is new these days.

              1. I don’t think it’s fair to sat that Republicans support “destroying” our government, particularly in the context of murder.

                Do you have a quote that you’re referring to?

                  1. King wasn’t very artful, but I don’t think he’s justifying the guy’s actions.  Here’s the entire quote:

                    KING: I think if we’d abolished the IRS back when I first advocated it, he wouldn’t have a target for his airplane. And I’m still for abolishing the IRS, I’ve been for it for thirty years and I’m for a national sales tax. […] It’s sad the incident in Texas happened, but by the same token, it’s an agency that is unnecessary and when the day comes when that is over and we abolish the IRS, it’s going to be a happy day for America.

                    TP: So some of his grievances were legitimate?

                    KING: I don’t know if his grievances were legitimate, I’ve read part of the material. I can tell you I’ve been audited by the IRS and I’ve had the sense of ‘why is the IRS in my kitchen.’ Why do they have their thumb in the middle of my back. … It is intrusive and we can do a better job without them entirely.

                    I’m not trying to be in your grill about this – you seem pretty agitated, so let me assure you that I’m not being snarky about this at all.  The whole thing is tragic – I just don’t think it’s fair to pin this on Republicans.

                    1. and never agitating.  The whole point of blogs is to get in each others grill and offer each other our best thoughts and most compelling arguments so we can each grow by opening just a crack our closed minds to consider alternative explanations.

                      I agree with you to an extent that Republican politicians and media personalities who call for secession and the absolute obstruction and lack of cooperation with the policies and programs that are put forward by an administration that was duly and fairly elected by the citizens of this entire nation are not responsible for the actions of a deranged anti-government extremist.  The dividing line is pretty thin though when you consider the empathy extended to the terrorist by these Republican politicians and the lack of compassion for the victim.  How many people know of the murdered victim and his story?

                      You may be correct that it is wrong to lay this tragedy at the foot of the “democracy only exists in America when Republicans are in charge and up or down votes are mandatory then” crowd but you also don’t see any Democratic politicians saying that the guy had a point and suicide bombings of US buildings are not acts of terrorism.

                      Vernon Hunter

                      http://www.carolinalive.com/ne…

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