Female GOP House Members Are 'Literally Battered Women,' Democrat Tells Ed Schultz

Not only that, a member of Congress doesn't know what "literally" means.

It's not often Ed Schultz is taken aback when one of his loopy left-wing guests makes an outlandish claim, but that's what happened on his radio show Wednesday. (audio clip after page break)

Schultz was talking with Democratic Congresswoman Gwen Moore about GOP Rep. Mike Coffman criticizing President Obama as "not an American." Just as Schultz went over the top in describing Coffman's remarks (for which he's apologized) as "treasonous," Moore was determined not to be outdone in hyperbole. (audio) --

MOORE: Even with all of the obstruction, (Obama's) been transformational in just his first term. And as amazing and outstanding as he, even if you don't, if you didn't vote for him, you have to admit that he's smart, he's decent, and the only thing that they can do is the, are these ad hominem attacks. When you can't attack someone on their ability, the only thing left for you to do is to characterize them as monkeys, as something other than American, and it's sad to see racism in this country resurging, you know, as it was back in the days of the Ku Klux Klan.

First warning sign: Coffman smeared as little more than a KKKer who sees Obama swinging through trees --

SCHULTZ: It's amazing, you're in the same chamber with these people.

MOORE (sighs): Yeah, it is.

SCHULTZ: It is amazing. ... Let's talk about this video that has been produced by Republican women in the House trying to make the case that, you know, the Republican Party has done a lot for women. I documented it last night, put it on the show obviously that they voted against Lily Ledbetter, they voted against the equal pay. I mean, you can go right down the list. President Obama leads Mitt Romney, his opponent, by 15 percentage points in the women's category in the polling. Do you think it'll stay like this? Do you think the Republicans can make up ground on that the way the way they've been voting?

MOORE: Just let me say this, Ed. You know, I know most of the women that were in that video, I know them personally, I've been the co-chair of the Non-Partisan Women's Caucus and vice-chair for several years, taking a leadership role in this women's organization. There are several of those women who I'm sure were dragged kicking and screaming into that room to take that video.

"Dragged kicking and screaming into that room"? A tad much, but what we can expect on any given day. Alas, it got worse --

MOORE: The reality is is that Congress is a very male-gendered oriented institution. Out of the, you know, more than 10,000 people who've ever been elected to Congress, you know, only about 250 of them have ever been women. And certainly we're at a point and time when in 30 years the percentage of women who are in Congress or have been elected is lower than it's been in 30 years.

If only liberals had considered these numbers when they voted against Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell in 2010. Moore followed with her jaw-dropper --

MOORE: And so they are as battered, they are literally battered women in that caucus. Time and again, they've been forced to vote against the interests of women and the consequences for not voting with the Republican Party are great. I mean, you just, male or female, just look at Dick Lugar who cooperated with the president. Or I'm thinking of Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio), who was in that video. She had a primary and was beaten in a primary. She was one of the women that showed up at the non-partisan women's meetings on a regular basis. And so there are, there's a huge cost in being bipartisan, a tradition started by Newt Gingrich when he took over the House in 1994 and has continued forward, that you dare not vote against the Republican Party even if you're voting against your own initiatives and your own interests.

SCHULTZ: So there's a cost to being bipartisan. You think those women went kicking and screaming in front of that and you go so far as ...

MOORE: A couple of them, a couple of them ...

... the number of alleged unwilling participants dropping precipitously in a matter of minutes. Schultz, to his credit, pressed Moore on that alarming claim she just made about women getting beaten up in Congress --

SCHULTZ: And they're battered women in the caucus?!

MOORE (laughs): Yes, yes, they are. They're battered by, um, (gears furiously whirring), you know, not necessarily the mainstream Republicans (and not battered per se ...), but this is not my grandmother, my grandmother died a Republican, she refused to go along with the realignment, my grandmother for whom I'm named. This is not the party of Lincoln. This is the tea party and to the extent that they have a large, uh, contingency (you mean "contingent," right ...?) in the House, I think that not only are these women battered, but the leadership is battered. When you see John Boehner crying (laughs, more goofily), believe you me, it's because he cannot control, uh, that wild contingency called the tea party.

If what Moore claims is true and she has been aware of this but did nothing to stop it, doesn't that make her ... an enabler?

Gwen Moore -- literally part of the contingency in Congress that turns its back on battered Republicans, regardless of gender.