Speaking on Sunday’s AM Joy on MSNBC, contributor, supposed “conservative” Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin hit the daily double of nastiness: accusing the Trump Administration of inciting gunmen to violence against the press, and stating that White House Press Secretary Sarah Hucakbee Sanders deserved a “life sentence” of being harassed publicly.
As Newsbusters reports, Rubin started her rant by threatening the two GOP women senators who have records of supporting the pro-choice community, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, that they would be “held responsible” if they confirmed a nominee of President Trump who was anti-abortion:
Secondly, you throw up, I think, in front of Ms. Collins and Ms. Murkowski, the two women Republicans, that they will be held responsible. They are doing the dance. They are pretending because a nominee says this is all about precedent that they can vote for him. No. The message to those two women by Democrats, by pro-choice women in those two states—by the entire states of Maine and Alaska—has to be simple. You vote for this, Ms. Collins, Ms. Murkowski, you have voted to criminalize abortion—this is on you. And we’re not going to accept these nonsense excuses that, “Well, because he said he was in favor of precedent, this won’t count, you can vote for him.’” No! It has to be all-out, on the ground in those states. Those women have to be put under a glaring light so that they finally have to make a choice that actually does go against their party. Unless they were just phony pro-choice women all along—which is distinctly possible.
Later, Rubin attacked President Trump and Sarah Sanders for inciting the press, as she called for Sanders to be harassed for the rest of her life:
The next time that Sarah Sanders or the President starts in with his “fake news” and “enemy of the people,” I would suggest one of two things: either the entire press corps walk out of the briefing room; why should they put on air a message that is a coded word to every nutcase in America to come after them? So get up and leave, or, in unison, holler back. They sit there; they take it; they record it; we have to be there; we have to let them say their piece. No, you don’t. Your lives are all endangered; your lives are on the line. These people whip up a crowd, and it’s not just gunmen. When my colleagues go to a rally, and he turns the crowd against them so they are screaming in their faces and he selects out one or two reporters as he did with Katy Tur; what do you think that is? That’s incitement to violence, too. And I think the press has to defend them; I think Democrats have to defend them, and I think this argument about using the outside salad fork first, or whatever it is that they concern themselves with is silly.
I do think there’s one point that they miss, however. And that is you have to do what is most effective. I don’t think what’s most effective is throwing Sarah Sanders out of a restaurant; I wouldn’t serve her either, frankly. But what’s most successful is getting a million people on the street to protest. So let’s redirect all of that good, pent-up energy to something that makes a difference. Let’s get a million people to go to Maine or a million people to go to Alaska and start putting pressure on those Senators. So it’s perfectly civil to do that–no one is telling them to be violent protesters, but we’re not going to let these people go through life unscathed. Sarah Huckabee has no right to live a life of no fuss, no muss, after lying to the press—after lying to the press, after inciting against the press. These people should be made uncomfortable, and I think that’s a life sentence, frankly.
For a scathing analysis of Rubin’s political schizophrenia over the years, as well as her monomania regarding President Trump, see here, by Charles C. W. Cooke.