John Oliver

I am not a fan of politics and despise that partisan games get in the way of doing the right thing. This fiasco is a perfect example of why it annoys me. I had worked late the night of this interview and had the opportunity to listen to the whole dialog as it unfolded live while I was driving home from work.

Almost immediately, it was apparent that both sides were ready to dig in and fight this one out. Specter did an admirable job of relaying his stance and went so far to back up it up by pointing out that he voted for bills that supported his stance. In all fairness, Bachmann was given time to talk and very quickly jumped on the Republican talking points bandwagon. To me, her comments came off fake and rehearsed. She offered nothing about who she was or what she stood for, just the generic republican mush about how they are against everything that the democrats propose.

Expectedly, being tired of the standard republican talking points speach, Specter called her out to back up what she stands for. He simply asked her what she voted for. Now I felt this to be very reasonable. Furthermore, I feel Bachmann could have very easily won this debate by simply answering the Senators question. Instead, her response was more party line babble that constantly side stepped Specter’s question.

I remember this so clearly. I was fuming to hear Bachmann ramble on and on about prosperity and wanting to save the country. It was annoying and insulting to sit and listen to her talk and talk and talk about everything in general but not answer the very simple question that Specter had asked. She did not comment on her voting record or anything pertaining to what SHE stood for. It was just the normal cry baby response you hear from the likes of Sarah Palin.

As far as Specters controversial comments go, I felt then and feel now that he let his emotions take over and he spoke from the heart. It was very apparent that he holds an antiquated view of women, one of which should not be supported by any politician. When he went off on his remarks, I thought, wow, here he had Bachmann nailed to the cross and he flipped the whole focus back on to him instead of successfully showing how fake and unprepared she was. It was unfortunate.

I think the true problem here is that the press hyped this comment and missed focusing on the fact that Bachmann couldn’t do a simple thing: back up her stance with her voting record. Very sad and if I were represented by her, I would be embarrassed.

But thats what playing the political game is all about. We have gotten away from representing the people and gone towards a system where you get rewarded and popular by how loyal and true you are to your party. So sad.