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It was one of the most dramatic moments of the hotly-contested 2008 presidential campaign between Barack Obama and John McCain. Remember?
A woman stood up at a McCain campaign rally and said, “I can’t trust Obama. I have read about him, and he’s not, he’s not — he’s an Arab.” Before she could continue, McCain immediately reached out, took the microphone from her, shook his head, and said: “No, ma’am. He’s a decent family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that’s what this campaign is all about.”
It was a magic moment. Unfortunately, it’s also a rare moment these days — when a politician demonstrates not only courage, but also decency, civility and respect for a fellow politician, regardless of party. And it’s just that sense of decency, civility and respect that was so woefully lacking last week in the silence of Republican senators after the violent treatment of fellow Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) in a Los Angeles federal building.
First, let’s be clear about what happened and what did not. Watch the video. Padilla did not, as alleged, “charge” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Padilla did not “lunge” at the secretary. Padilla did not resist arrest. Nor did he fail to identify himself. He did so verbally, and the polo shirt he wore said “United States Senate.”
In a meeting with federal agents, the senator was informed that Noem was holding a news conference, at that very hour, in the same building. He was escorted to the briefing by a National Guard officer and an FBI agent. For several minutes, Padilla stood silently in the back of the room. But when the secretary said she was in Los Angeles “to liberate this city from the socialist and burdensome leadership that this governor and this mayor have placed on this country,” Padilla felt obliged to respond.
He stepped forward, raised his voice, and said loudly and clearly: “I am Sen. Alex Padilla, and I have questions for the secretary.” At which point, FBI agents tackled the senator even as he continued to identify himself, threw him to the ground, handcuffed him, and dragged him out of the room.
You would think anyone with a sense of decency would agree, despite any differences over policy, that this was an ugly, appalling and unnecessarily violent way to treat any sitting U.S. senator. You know John McCain would have condemned such an abuse of force. But not Noem. And, worse yet, only one of Padilla’s Republican colleagues had the courtesy to do so.
Even after it was clear that the man handcuffed and dragged out of the room was a senator, Noem still defended the way he was roughed up and — wait for it — insisted she didn’t even know who he was.
That in itself is appalling: that a Cabinet secretary did not recognize a U.S. senator, especially when she is speaking in his state about immigration there and he is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration.
Even more appalling was the response from Republicans in Congress. Democrats rushed to condemn the way Padilla was treated. But only two Republican senators had anything negative to say about it at all. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) called the incident “horrible” and “shocking at every level.” She continued: “It’s not the America I know.” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), although she did not go so far as to explicitly condemn the violent treatment of Padilla, called it “very disturbing.”
But other Republicans either refused to comment or even applauded Padilla’s treatment. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) accused Padilla of “making a spectacle of himself.” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) went so far as to say Padilla should be censured by the Senate. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) sniffed that Padilla “got what he wanted, he’s on TV.”
And the response from the vast majority of Republican representatives and senators was: crickets. What a shameful lack of common courtesy and decency and courage. After all, how difficult would it be for members of Congress to stand together and say: “We may disagree with our friends across the aisle on many issues, but on this we all agree: Every member of Congress, Republican, Democrat, and Independent, deserves to be treated with the utmost respect. Especially when he or she has committed no crime, and is only doing their job.”
It wasn’t so long ago when people used to make fun of senators for being so polite toward one another, using phrases like “My good friend from Tennessee,” or “the distinguished senator from Ohio,” but no longer.
Where’s John McCain when we need him?
Bill Press is host of “The Bill Press Pod.” He is the author of “From the Left: A Life in the Crossfire.”
