OR-5: Bruun says health reform "right up there" with slavery. Seriously.
Kari Chisholm
The congressional campaign seems to be taking a toll on investment banker and GOP candidate Scott Bruun, who is now in full meltdown.
The Hill newspaper reports that Bruun recently compared the health care reform law with 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, saying it was "right up there" in terms of the worst bills ever passed:
"I would argue that from a fiscal perspective, it's probably the worst piece of legislation this nation's ever passed," Bruun said during a speech that was recorded by a Democratic campaign tracker.
The audience clapped its approval, but then Bruun continued.
"From a social perspective, it's right up there, I would argue — probably the fugitive slave law was worse," he added. "But still, the healthcare bill was pretty darn bad."
As The Hill notes, the Fugitive Slave Act "required any runaway slaves who had escaped their bondage and were living free in the Northern states be returned to their owners."
Is there really any comparison at all?
Reasonable people can disagree about the merits of the health reform law, but it's outrageous to suggest that it's similar to slavery in any way. The importation, bondage and forced labor of hundreds of thousands of Africans over two hundred years of American history isn't even remotely close to the health care law -- even if you don't like some of its particulars.
I mean, seriously, Scott Bruun. Seriously.
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3:40 p.m.
Oct 11, '10
More proof that Bruun has morphed into a raving lunatic who will say anything to try and win over the teahadist vote.
What next, that mandatory Medicare withholdings are the social and moral equivalent of the Shoah?
(shakes head)
3:51 p.m.
Oct 11, '10
He still has time...
Please not that I will not be defending this turd blossom at any point now or in the future. Or the past for that matter.
4:04 p.m.
Oct 11, '10
First class jerk and a phony. Truth be told the Affordable Health Act is a moderate Republican health care bill, close to what the Senator Chafee of RI proposed in '93, and virtually identical to Mitt Romney's bill in MA. Anyway, in Scott Bruun's world exclusions and recisions protecting corporate profits are comparable to the Emancipation Proclamation. And 51 million Americans who don't have anything are all expendable.
5:07 p.m.
Oct 11, '10
Unless he's saying that people who run away to Canada to get better health care need to be returned to their owners the big insurance compaines in America....I am really having a hard time seeing the comparison to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
6:40 p.m.
Oct 11, '10
Thanks for including the video link, Kari.
By my ear, Bruun wasn't saying what your headline implies he was saying.
Bruun said it was "right up there" - meaning, as I hear it, Bruun thinks health care reform was one of the worst bills Congress ever passed. A framing of a current hot-button issue as "really bad."
He also notes that probably the fugitive slave act was worse - a conversational note and informal phraseology, not by my reading an actual argument or attempt to measure the two against each other. It's hyperbole, and a poor example to bring up, but I don't think Bruun is trying to compare the two.
That said, I agree, Bruun is tilting hard right, and we need to work hard to re-elect Schrader now.
Give here! http://www.kurtschrader.com/
9:57 p.m.
Oct 11, '10
Right. He said that the Fugitive Slave Law was "probably" the worst - but that the health care was close.
It's not close. Not even a little.
8:26 p.m.
Oct 11, '10
This is another example of how utterly degraded and reckless the Republican Party has become. A candidate for high office can say anything, no matter how psychotic or detached from reality, and be applauded for it, encouraged to say it in public groups by his own party.
8:29 a.m.
Oct 12, '10
I'll tell you what's "right up there," although I wouldn't compare anything to the Fugitive Slave Act:
Hauling your tired, sick ass, the tired and sick part acquired during. lets say, chemotherapy, off the couch to answer the phone or get the mail, and confronting calls and letters from the business offices of the doctors and hospitals you depend on for your treatment, and knowing you can't pay them anytime soon.
Most people who are happy with the system as it was and largely still is haven't had to use it. At least we've now started to make it better.
9:01 a.m.
Oct 12, '10
Considering that the hard-right loonies equate any program that benefits ordinary working Americans with "socialism" and equate "socialism" with "slavery," this sort of rhetoric really is not surprising.
8:41 p.m.
Oct 12, '10
Scott Bruun now is running a push-poll, so he must be getting more and more deranged and frantic.