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Stories tagged with “Mary Matalin”

LGBT

Conservative Pundit: Accepting Same-Sex Marriage Is Common Sense

By Annie-Rose Strasser on Dec 9, 2012 at 11:40 am

Mary Matalin

Republican political strategist Mary Matalin must have finally gotten the message that a growing number of Americans support marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples. On ABC’s This Week, as the show discussed the Supreme Court’s decision to weigh in on the matter, Matalin softened her opposition and said that the pattern of children born out of wedlock was “more problematic” for society than two men or two women getting married.

Previously, Matalin has defended “traditional marriage” and said that marriage equality was not a “civil rights issue.” But on Sunday, Matalin opted to fall back on the argument that unwed parents, not gays and lesbians, are leading to the downfall of American morality:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (HOST): The lines have crossed. Forty eight percent, approaching going above 50 percent support gay marriage in the country. Forty eight percent now support gay marriage in the country.

MATALIN: Well, because Americans have common sense. There are important constitutional, biological, theological, ontological questions relative to homosexual marriage. People who live in the real world, say, the greater threat to the civil order are the heterosexuals who don’t get married and are making babies. That’s an epidemic in crisis proportions. That is irrefutably more problematic for our culture than homosexuals getting married. I find this important dancing on the head of a pin argument, but in real life, looking down 30 years from now, real people understand the consequences of so many babies being born out of wedlock to the economy and to the morality of the country.

Watch it:

Washington Post columnist George Will, who appeared alongside Matalin, also dismissed the potency of the issue for Republicans. “There is something like an emerging consensus,” he said. “Quite literally, the opposition to gay marriage is dying. It’s old people.”

Indeed, the latest polls on the issue show support steadily growing for marriage equality. In one recent Quinnipiac poll, 48 percent voiced support for marriage equality, while 46 percent opposed the right. Another poll from USA Today and Gallup showed higher numbers, with 53 percent in support of marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples.

Nine states and the District of Columbia have legalized marriage equality.

Health

Mary Matalin Calls Paul Krugman A ‘Liar’ For Telling The Truth

By Sy Mukherjee on Oct 7, 2012 at 11:21 am

During a roundtable discussion on George Stephanoupolos’ This Week Sunday morning, GOP political consultant Mary Matalin got into a heated exchange with Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, calling him a “liar” for previously referring to Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform plan as a “voucher” program:

MATALIN: You have mischaracterized and you have lied about every position and every particular of the Ryan plan on Medicare, from the efficiency of Medicare administration, to calling it a voucher plan, so you’re hardly credible on calling somebody else a liar.

Watch it:

But this is exactly what the Ryan proposal is — turning Medicare from a “defined benefit” into a “defined contribution” plan. Seniors would get a voucher from the federal government that they could use to help pay for a selection of private plans.

Although the Romney/Ryan campaign has shied away from this phrase in favor of the euphemistic “premium support,” Ryan himself has specifically referred to his proposal as a “voucher” program in the past.

Election

Top GOP Operative: Republicans ‘Will Run A Write-In’ To Defeat Todd Akin

By Judd Legum on Aug 26, 2012 at 10:44 am

Republicans are desperate for Todd Akin to drop out of the Missouri Senate race after his controversial comments about legitimate rape. Nearly every top Republican, including Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, have publicly called for him to quit.

This morning on ABC News, however, Mary Matalin — a well-connected GOP operative — suggested that Republicans would run a write-in candidate to defeat Akin. Matlin said that, if necessary, Republicans would “transfer the money” to Ann Wagner — a former chairwoman of the Missouri GOP who is currently running for Congress — to run as a 3rd party or write-in candidate. Watch it:

Todd Akin has said he’s absolutely committed to staying in the election until November.

Transcript:

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Politics

Mary Matalin claims President Bush ‘inherited’ the September 11th terror attacks.

By Lee Fang on Dec 27, 2009 at 1:33 pm

On CNN today, GOP strategist and former Dick Cheney adviser Mary Matalin argued that President Obama is speaking too much about the severe debt, deficits, and economic recession he inherited from the previous administration. Defending her former boss, Matalin charged that President Bush had in fact “inherited a recession” and the September 11th attacks from President Clinton:

MATALIN: I was there, we inherited a recession from President Clinton and we inherited the most tragic attack on our own soil in our nation’s history. And President Bush dealt with it and within a year of his presidency within a comparable time, unemployment was at 5 percent.

Watch it:

In reality, the terror attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center occurred on Sept. 11, 2001 — eight months into President Bush’s first term. Also, the 2001 recession technically began in March of 2001, well after Bush assumed office. Last month, former Bush administration spokesperson Dana Perino claimed that “we did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term.” Former Bush administration officials seem intent on misrepresenting history to pretend that the country never suffered its worst terror attack in history under Bush’s watch. It’s a peculiar talking point, even considering the other efforts to whitewash Bush’s disastrous record.

Politics

Matalin slurs health reform advocates as ‘health care jihadists.’

By Faiz Shakir on Dec 21, 2009 at 10:48 am

Yesterday on CNN, Republican strategist and CNN contributor Mary Matalin railed against Democrats for pushing forward with health reform efforts. “They’ve been on this jihad for 70 years, and they’re going to throw over all their competitive seats to do it,” she said, adding:

And I don’t know what kind of party that is. That leaves left in the Democratic Party the urban centers, this is tyranny of the minority. Two-thirds of the country don’t want this. And one-third of these jihadists, these health care jihadists do. I guess that’s how democracy in the Obama era works.

Moments later, she smeared the prior efforts to establish Social Security and Medicare as “entitlement jihads” as well. Watch it:

Matalin has employed the concept of “holy war” in her political debates before. On Meet the Press in 2006, she attacked David Gregory for going “on a jihad” in covering the Vice President’s accidental shooting of his friend Harry Whittington. Gregory responded, “That’s an unfortunate use of that word, by the way. This is not what that was.”

Transcript: Read more

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