With both President Donald Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, making statements before the camera Monday, your average Republican would have to say something really outrageous to even register on the scandal meter … and yet Rep. Blake Farenthold managed to do it.
Not surprised it was Blake Farenthold with today's off-message comments. Dude is generally a horrible communicator.
— Liz Mair (@LizMair) July 24, 2017
The Associated Press threw some chum to reporters with its headline, “Lawmaker blames female senators for failed bill,” but it was a detail from later in the article that really got the waters roiling. Not only did Farenthold blame Congress’ failure to repeal Obamacare on “some female senators from the Northeast” — he added in a radio interview that were it “a guy from south Texas” impeding the process, he “might ask him to step outside and settle this Aaron Burr-style.”
Enclosing “female senators” in quotations was a nice touch and perhaps part of the AP’s effort to embrace gender fluidity in reporting.
GOP lawmaker blames "female senators" on health care bill, says if they were men he'd challenge them to a duel: https://t.co/0GKTZ0DqrN
— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) July 24, 2017
Who could have known that throwing the image of guns into the mix would go over so poorly?
Get it right @AP_Politics – "challenge them to a duel" = "wants to shoot three women." https://t.co/cLKZuy7oMa
— David S. Cohen (@dsc250) July 24, 2017
Yeah, not really. We’re not defending Farenthold’s choice of words here, because he really ought to know by now that the greatest minds on Twitter will willfully misinterpret analogies to fit their narrative. So just ignore the part about “if they were men.”
Recommended
GOP senator wishes female senators were men so he can shoot them. https://t.co/YiE9G2AEAa
— toot.cafe/@chartier (@chartier) July 24, 2017
That’s more like it.
There are some male senators standing athwart the bill too. Hie thee to Weehawken sir. https://t.co/gpBhlwo8El
— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) July 24, 2017
Weird that Rep @farenthold didn't challenge Sens Paul, Cruz, Lee, Heller, Portman, Moran, or Hoeven to a duel when they opposed the #BCRA… https://t.co/npBQTHiQso
— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) July 24, 2017
However, rather than run with the idea that the Congressman was advocating shooting his female colleagues, reporters and others decided to take the opposite tack, realizing that some body-shaming would work wonders in this instance.
Blake Farenthold is the rare lawmaker who is precisely as dumb as he looks.
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) July 24, 2017
OK, get ready for a flood of duck pajama photos from a 2009 costume party/fundraiser. It’s not pretty, but it’s not Rudy Giuliani in drag again, so that’s a plus.
This is Representative Blake Farenthold on the right. He has concerns about the judgment of female Senators. ?https://t.co/IkzNDYdOoO pic.twitter.com/heqSFdClUC
— Ezra Levin (@ezralevin) July 24, 2017
Rep. Blake Farenthold complained about female Senators holding up the Obamacare repeal bill. Reminder, this is him https://t.co/TTjSxiPdnH pic.twitter.com/gTThMLUiMG
— Emily C. Singer (@CahnEmily) July 24, 2017
GOP Congressman @farenthold blames women senators for repeal failure and says if they were men he'd engage in a duel.
(Real pic on right) pic.twitter.com/TQDv55iAmm
— Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) July 24, 2017
This guy is like Josh Gad crossed with Jabba the Hut https://t.co/x7G3B9m0NL
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) July 24, 2017
Live look at Blake Farenthold pic.twitter.com/ksUnElcmqB
— Matt Murphy (@MattMurph24) July 24, 2017
https://twitter.com/MassivRuss/status/889578990603776000
https://twitter.com/E1T14L/status/889579023319285761
Republicans already had made a complete mess of their health care messaging; maybe Farenthold could do the GOP a huge favor a stop helping.
* * *
Related:
FLASHBACK: Remember when Obama saying ‘If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun’ was just a metaphor? https://t.co/NnXWIay934
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) July 2, 2017
Join the conversation as a VIP Member