Senator Britt represented the Republican Party in its response to President Biden’s State of the Union speech last Thurday night, and won herself Four Pinocchios! for her lies related to Border issues.
The Pinocchio Test: “In a high-profile speech like this, a politician should not mislead voters with emotionally charged language. Romero’s story is tragic and may be evocative of other Mexican girls trapped in the sex trade in that country. But she was not trafficked across the border — and her story has nothing to do with Biden. Britt’s failure to make that clear earns her Four Pinocchios.
Funny. Not funny. Did anyone in the Republican Party remember that House Republicans just canned a strong bi-partisan Border solution that Republican Senator James Lankford had sponsored?
- Speaker Mike Johnson had called the Border a “Crisis” about a gazillion times, and suddenly, he blocked the vote without reading the bill, which had a majority ready to vote for it.
- Why? Oh yeah. Donald Trump told Johnson to do it … can the crisis … save the Border to use as “spit balls” or “grenades” to throw at Biden.
- Johnson did it, proving once again that he’s just a stand-in for Trump and that Republicans can’t govern.
So Britt walked into her big Response opportunity armed with a lie — not just any old lie but one that has been hanging around for twenty years.
People do not just jump in as volunteers for SOTU Responses .. they are recruited. The sponsoring Party decides the topics and positions their chosen star is required to use.
It wasn’t just Britt that earned those Pinocchios. Rather the whole team of Republicans who chose the “factoids” and trained Britt on how they wanted them used earned them, too.
Four Pinocchios isn’t enough for this kind of garbage. Britt who wallowed in the garbage is now suffering an embarrassment loud enough that it is almost an echo chamber. Britt, her childlike voice, and her kitchen were parodied on SNL. Actress Scarlett Johansson nailed her in the SNL parody.
- Rachel Penett, The Washington Post: SNL turns Katie Britt’s State of the Union rebuttal into ‘Scary Mom’ audition
- Khalida Rhaman, Newsweek: ‘SNL’ Mocks Katie Britt’s SOTU Response As Scarlett Johansson Delights Fans
Britt, of course, is trying to defend herself: Mariana Alfaro, The Washington Post reports: Britt defends use of graphic sex-trafficking story from 20 years ago to attack Biden.
Com’on! A 20 year old Border story — true or not true, is hardly serious ammunition to throw at a sitting president.
Once again, Republicans prove they can’t govern.
They couldn’t have chosen a better week to do it — the high profile State of the Union week where President Biden was watched by the world, just one day before International Women’s Week.
It makes me wonder?
- The Border — Johnson’s Border Crisis, not a crisis anymore.
- Katie Boyd Britt — Republicans may have inadvertently set her up
- A Childlike Voice — is Britt a fundamentalist true-believer who proudly has been trained to use a childlike voice, or did she simply parrot what Trump and Johnson wanted her to do?
Britt managed to position herself as “Just a Mom with Kids” in the kitchen; she smiled when she talked about rape; she gave a truly manipulative speech. But maybe that is the message the Republican communications experts wanted her to send.
The speech was both demeaning to Moms in the kitchen, and demeaning to women’s out-of-the-kitchen accomplishments worldwide.
But demeaning is an ongoing label for Republicans who continue to be proud of their work.
- They take pride in using the Border as if it were a mere game of sport.
- They actively assist Putin in his war of aggression against Ukraine.
- They brag about how Trump’s stacked Supreme Court has taken away women’s right to choose our own health care.
If that wasn’t enough, most recently, the Mississippi State Court denied women’s right to use IVF to add in getting pregnant, and Republicans so far, are refusing to legalize IVF.
But we wonder: Was Britt used? is she really as stupid as she looked giving her response. If she was used, reading Substack writer Jess Piper, in her “The view from Rural Missouri” column today, may help us understand: “The Fundie Baby Voice.”
A second Substack writer, Tia Lemmings, in her “The Anti-Fundmentalist” column, adds fuel to the understanding of Britt’s fake “baby voice:” Fundie Baby Voice Isn’t What We Called It — Patriarchal men let women lead when it suits them
Republican men did “let” Britt lead. They chose her. Apparently, they did not have the nerve to do it themselves, so they pushed the unprepared freshman Senator into the lime light.
Her voice denied women’s power. It also avoided facts and demeaned us all.