Courtesy of Hotline, I’d like to present some quotes from an interview with Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee:
Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban… And that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person’s entire processes. And these Taliban — I’m not trying to say the Republican Party is the Taliban. No, that’s not what we’re saying. I’m saying an example of how you go about [sic] is to change a person from their messaging to their operations to their frontline message. And we need to understand that insurgency may be required when the other side, the House leadership, does not follow the same commands, which we entered the game with.
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If they do not give us those options or opportunities then we will then become insurgency of a nature to where we do those things that are necessary to making sure the American public knows what we think the correct answer is… So we either work together, or we’re going to find a way to get our message out.
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I simply said one can see that there’s a model out there for insurgency
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I think insurgency is a mindset and an attitude that we’re going to have to search for and find ways to get our message out and to be prepared to see things for what they are, rather than trying to do something about them.
Some questions: Why is getting one’s message out being compared to an insurgency? Isn’t that just the normal practice of democracy? No, what Sessions is signaling is the willingness of Republicans to sabotage the legislative process — to make sure no legislation at all is passed — if they don’t get what they wants. Imagine the hysterical rantings of the Republican leadership if a Democratic Congressional leader had said anything even remotely resembling this in 2000, let alone post-9/11.