Jean Schmidt, she of the notorious foot in mouth disease is at it again. Like other Republicans she recently joined in with the flagrantly inflammatory falsehood that the Chinese are drilling for oil off the coast of Florida. But unlike others she did it on the floor of the House.
Consequently, she was called on by many including the Ohio Democratic Party, the Hamilton County Democratic Party the Cincinnati Enquirer and others to retract her statement. But oh no, not Jean. Dick Cheney did, George Will did, but not Mean Jean. Instead she goes on the attack. Poor Jean she’s the victim it seems.
Last Saturday this guest column (see it on the flip) published in the Cincinnati Enquirer wherein Jean blames the media for her own error and attacks the paper for singling her out and missing the "larger picture," that being the need to drill in coastal waters.
-
-
Never mind that coastal drilling can’t influence supply for at least 10 years and probably never will do anything to bring down price. Maybe she still thinks a little red-baiting can work in Ohio and save her from ignominious defeat this fall.
And methinks she didn’t like that headline, the Enquirer scrubbed the guest column from their website within two days. But the Ohio blog The Daily Bellweather has preserved it for posterity and carried on in other posts the discussion that clearly Schmidt would like to see spiked.
Jean’s lashing out all over the place. This priceless letter and a wonderful response from Hamilton County Democratic Chair Tim Burke also paint the picture quite nicely.
June 18,2008
Mr. Tim Burke
Chairman of the Hamilton County Democrat Party
6109 Webbland Place
Cincinnati, Ohio 45213
Dear Mr. Burke:
While I have yet to receive a copy of your letter attacking me, I wanted to respond as soon as possible.
I always enjoy your loose relationship with the truth, but this one may well eam you a gold medal for hypocrisy.
A quick search of the Congressional Record would have yielded you some names of folks who said the same thing I did. I understand that research is not something you typically do when you have been faxed your talking points.
Had you taken a few minutes you would have found that Chairman Charlie Rangel, a man we both respect, had placed into the Congressional Record the same claim. He was joined by
Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Representative Mike Ross (D-AR) who made the same claim.
Yet of the four of us, I was amazingly singled out for your venom. I imagine those names were not on your talking points.
You may know Senator Dorgan; he is both Chairman of the Senate's Energy Sub-Committee and Chairman of the Democrat Policy Committee.
Further, I find it amazing that the Communists in Cuba have demonstrated a better understanding of the laws of supply and demand than your party. I know that the extreme environment-wing of your party is pleased that gas prices continue to climb. But the working class families that you so boastfully claim to represent arc footing the bill every time they go to the pump. They can afford your energy policy no more.
On the issue of my vote not to raise taxes by some $13 billion on the oil companies, please allow me to explain. Taxes are a portion of the cost of manufacturing a product. When you increase taxes on a company you increase the manufacturing cost; thus, the price it charges for its products will increase. I will not vote for even higher gasoline prices like my opponent
this fall has proposed. I will assume by your silence that you have endorsed her proposal to increase the gasoline tax by $.50 per gallon. Perhaps the communists might be able to provide both of you some counsel on this economic reality.
Please know that I will do everything in my power to increase the supply of gasoline in this country so that prices may return to a level nearer the price when the Democrat Majority came into office. A majority made possible, in part, by boasting of a "common sense plan" 10 lower gasoline prices. If by chance you happen to have a copy of the so-called "common sense plan" would you be so kind as to forward a copy to Speaker Pelosi. She seems to have misplaced her copy.
Jean Schmidt
MEMBER OF CONGRESS
June 20, 2008
United States Representative Jean Schmidt
8044 Montgomery Road, Suite 54
Cincinnati, Ohio 45236
Dear Congresswoman Schmidt:
Your reply letter of June 18th states that my comments have a "loose relationship with the truth." I am unaware of any inaccurate statements in my letter to you. If there are I apologize and I would be happy to retract those inaccurate statements. Please point them out to me and I will do so.
All I ask is that you do the same.
Your statement that "the Chinese are drilling off the coast of Florida" is wrong. The Vice President has acknowledged that is not correct. Even George Will, in a rare correction, retracted his similar statement as inaccurate. The Enquirer reports that the Democrats you mentioned in your letter did not claim, as you did, that drilling by the Chinese was currently underway. If any Democrats did make such erroneous statements they should, just like the Vice President and George Will, acknowledge they were wrong and make a correction.
So should you.
If you continue to believe that such drilling is going on, where is it located? How far off the coast? Latitude and Longitude? How many platforms are involved? I don't think you will or can answer those questions, because you know your original claim was false.
While I have no reason to believe that you made a deliberate attempt to deceive, you made a statement on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives that was not true, a mistake that should be acknowledged and corrected. That was all I asked. So I was surprised by your vitriolic, wild reply. I shouldn't have been given your history: plagiarizing as your own a newspaper column already published by another member of Congress; suggesting that a nuclear waste dump might be good in the second district; and in another embarrassing speech on the floor of the House, accusing a colleague in Congress, a Marine Corps hero, of being a coward.
I guess Saturday Night Live got it right.
Sincerely,
Timothy M. Burke
So if you can, make a contribution to reducing our national embarrassment and sending Jean Schmidt back where she came from, wherever that is. One can only speculate
Donate a few bucks to Vic Wulsin, the Dem candidate in OH-2