Ed Schultz Hails Menendez Comparison of GOP to Terrorists, Says They've Been on an 'Economic Jihad'

December 8th, 2010 7:05 AM

Just as Ed Schultz declared that Rep. Alan Grayson was a model for Democratic success with a TV ad calling his GOP opponent "Taliban Dan" ("This is how you fight, Democrats") before Grayson was badly defeated for re-election, on Monday night's Ed Show on MSNBC, he hailed Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey for picking up the GOP-as-terrorists line: 

Senator Bob Menendez hammered the Republicans for their tactics: “Do you allow yourself to be held hostage and get something done for the sake of getting something done, when in fact it might be perverse in its ultimate results?” Well said, Senator. "It‘s almost like the question of, do you negotiate with terrorists?" Wow.

Menendez, I think, is spot on. You can‘t negotiate with terrorists or Republicans these days. They‘ve been on an economic jihad against the middle class for decades, and they‘re determined to blow up any vote the Democrats put on the table.

Schultz interviewed self-identified socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders to attack the deal, and then Newsweek's Jonathan Alter proclaimed that he completely agreed, but said "you could argue" that people voted for the Republicans in November:

I basically agree with Bernie Sanders on this.  I think it‘s crazy and really, really bad politics and bad policy.

But you could argue that the politics on this were conditioned by this election, that the American people were given a chance to speak, and whatever the polls are saying—and the polls show people feel that extending the tax cuts for the wealthy is a bad idea—they had an opportunity to send a message in November, and they didn‘t send it, Ed.  So it puts the president in a really hard position.

Alter tried to talk Schultz off the ledge and back into the building, that Obama had to do something to prevent the Republicans from taking away unemployment benefits and tax cuts for the middle class. They mourned together that Obama was blamed for overspending and deficits:

SCHULTZ: I mean, the Republicans have gone around the country blaming the stimulus package on the Obama administration, saying that he has signatured all these record deficits, and now they come back—

ALTER:  Which is totally untrue.  Totally untrue.

SCHULTZ:  It is untrue, because it was before he was in. But this is the narrative they created, said that he wasn‘t concerned about the national debt and foreign debt and crisis and all that.  And so now they come back and usher in their tax cuts.  And look what it‘s going to do.  This is going to ad $700 billion and beyond.  I mean, this—I can‘t believe that the president would not go with -- stand up and say, this is what the American people want and I‘m going to draw my line in the sand.