{"id":862,"date":"2010-03-14T04:09:05","date_gmt":"2010-03-14T11:09:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=862"},"modified":"2010-03-14T04:10:24","modified_gmt":"2010-03-14T11:10:24","slug":"gop-sweetheart-3142009-dan-riehl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2010\/03\/14\/gop-sweetheart-3142009-dan-riehl\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP Sweetheart &ndash; 3\/14\/2010: Dan Riehl"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Few acts in my recent memory are more indicative of the depths to which the GOP has fallen.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in; font-family: arial; font-size: 10pt;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/danriehl.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px; display: inline; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"danriehl\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/danriehl_thumb.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"danriehl\" width=\"244\" height=\"174\" align=\"right\" \/><\/a> Okay, a politician like Harry Reid is a polarizing figure. He makes some people very angry. Fine.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in; font-family: arial; font-size: 10pt;\">But when anyone \u2014 be it Harry Reid or one of his critics across the aisle \u2014 faces a random, personal tragedy, the American public can expect media commentators to remove their ideological boxing gloves and give that person a break.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in; font-family: arial; font-size: 10pt;\">Right?<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in; font-family: arial; font-size: 10pt;\">Well, apparently not.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in; font-family: arial; font-size: 10pt;\">Two days after Reid&#8217;s wife Landra was sent to the hospital with a broken neck and broken back after a car accident in which their daughter was also hurt, conservative blogger Dan Riehl took the golden opportunity of Reid&#8217;s grief to say something so morally abhorrent [GOP sociopath delinked] and politically reprehensible.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in; font-family: arial; font-size: 10pt;\">So, in Riehl&#8217;s own words:<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.375in; font-family: arial; font-size: 10pt;\"><strong>If Democrats want so badly to abort babies because of (healthcare costs), why are we bothering with someone who has a broken neck and back at 69? It sounds to me like she\u2019s pretty well used up and has probably been living off the taxpayers for plenty of years to begin with. Aren\u2019t we at least going to get a vote on it?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in; font-family: arial; font-size: 10pt;\">It&#8217;s possible that Riehl is trying to allude to the non-existent &#8220;death panels&#8221; made infamous by Sarah Palin. But if Riehl is attempting irony, it falls seriously flat. Writers across the Web have quickly denounced his statement that Reid &#8220;pull the plug&#8221; on his wife.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.375in; font-family: arial; font-size: 10pt;\"><strong>Come on, Harry &#8211; do your civic duty. The nation&#8217;s broke and counting on you guy. <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Pull the plug and get back to work<\/span>. And don&#8217;t bill us for a full day today, either. This is no time to be sloughing off. Air freight her home, you can bury her during recess on your own time and dime. Or are you going to bill us for that, too?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in; font-family: arial; font-size: 10pt;\">Media Matters quickly <a href=\"http:\/\/mediamatters.org\/blog\/201003120056\" target=\"_blank\">linked<\/a> to the blog and eviscerated Riehl for his statement. Riehl immediately responded [GOP sociopath delinked] with this little gem:<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.375in; font-family: arial; font-size: 10pt;\"><strong>Well, that didn&#8217;t take long for Media Mutters to link. I wish I knew those babies way back when. I&#8217;d have taken a coat hanger to them!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in; font-family: arial; font-size: 10pt;\">&#8230; [<em>emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Inserted from &lt;<a href=\"http:\/\/rawstory.com\/2010\/03\/rightwing-blogger-reid-pull-plug-wifes-injury\/\" target=\"_blank\">Raw Story<\/a>&gt;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Only a true GOP Sweetheart could have the shameful audacity to claim label himself pro-life, while being so deeply in love with death.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Few acts in my recent memory are more indicative of the depths to which the GOP has fallen. Okay, a politician like Harry Reid is a polarizing figure. He makes some people very angry. Fine. But when anyone \u2014 be it Harry Reid or one of his critics across the aisle \u2014 faces a random, <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2010\/03\/14\/gop-sweetheart-3142009-dan-riehl\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}