The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

Evan Dawson and Sean Carroll at 13-WHAM are working the suffering story. Evan has two posts (here and here).

Kuhl's interview on the remarks will be played tonight on the 13-WHAM broadcast. His spokeswoman, Meghan Tisinger, didn't take back Kuhl's statement this afternoon.

Evan and Sean are trying to dig into why these remarks surfaced now. I don't know the answer to that question, but the reason they're an issue now is pretty clear. Colin Powell's Obama endorsement on Meet the Press [video], and his remarks afterward [video] which singled out Michele Bachmann, have been extremely influential.

Powell, the stable center-right voice of rational Republicanism, called out all the haterade we've been seeing. He did it calmly, succintly and with one devastating example. Maybe if you're John McCain, you can stand up to Powell. Rush Limbaugh can say Powell did it because he's black. But if you're Michelle Bachmann, you have one choice: abject apology.

As for Randy Kuhl, I don't think the choice is as clear. His remarks were garden-variety haterade. He didn't say that more than half of the House of Representatives hates America. He just implied it. I think the smart move here is for him to back down and this will go away. My sense is that he's going to push it, and it won't.

Update: Kuhl did not back down. Here's a quote from the just-posted update to one of the WHAM blog posts:

I think it's outlandish to think that a comment that I made 11 weeks ago is the beginning of quote-unquote a trend of my party some two and a half months later. I'd like to think that I had that kind of leadership capability and that I was that much forefront thinking, but not particularly.

I think that one needs a re-think: Is he saying he would rather have been the leader of the stupid brigade, instead of Michele Bachmann?