Speaking on Tuesday’s edition of Morning Joe, John Heilemann introduced a new level of attack on Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum by snarking that the conservative former senator has Tourette's syndrome.
In response to host Joe Scarborough assessing the Santorum candidacy as an amateur operation, Heilemann fired back with the following absurd and disgusting comment, “The thing we saw in the debate which is his tendency to be Bob Dole-like and senatorial. Locked in legislative tivies [sic] on one side and then on these cultural issues to have these kind of Tourette's-like outbursts of sincerity that are just very indiscipline [sic].” [Video below. MP3 audio here.]
Heilemann's attacks on Santorum’s character continued, diagnosing the presidential hopeful with the gravest sickness liberals can think of, intolerance: “He’s not...there's no sense of human tolerance around him. When people disagree with him.”
Calling the former senator intolerant and “bullheaded and bloody-minded” is just more of the same shrill attacks by the liberal media not just against Santorum but by extension socially conservative Americans with whom Santorum's campaign resonates.
Below is the relevant transcript.
Morning Joe
02/28/2012
7:13 a.m.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: The thing is John Heilemann, maybe the problem here, he's just an amateur, he's just not that good as Pat Buchanan would say, he's not that good of a political athlete. Because I've mocked and ridiculed liberals on the campaign trail on the separation of church and state issue. And I've even had liberals laughing with me. I mean there's a way to frame debates where you can win the day especially in the Republican primary and even have independents laughing with you. But he just goes out on there and goes JFK, he makes me want to throw up. It's just -- crude.
JOHN HEILEMANN: It's a bad mix. The thing we saw in the debate which is his tendency to be Bob Dole like and Senatorial. Locked in legislative tivies on one side and then on these cultural issues to have these kind of tourette's like outbursts of sincerity that are just very indiscipline. And so it’s like a weird combination of too much of a Washington insider also too much, too indiscipline and so humorless. And this goes to Mika's thing about not respecting other people's opinion. He’s not...there's no sense of human tolerance around him. When people disagree with him --
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: They're wrong.
HEILEMANN: They’re just wrong. And that kind of, that kind of bullheadedness and bloody-mindedness is a bad set of things. The amazing thing is that even with all of those things, he's still neck and neck with Mitt Romney in Michigan. And that is just astonishing. Think about if he was a little better candidate, he would be ahead by ten points.
