A desperate Martha McSally accuses Kyrsten Sinema of ‘treason’

The one and only senate debate between Martha McSally and Kyrsten Sinema did not fail to disappoint on substance.  McSally, in particular, was pre-programmed and stuck to canned responses to attack her opponent. If you have seen her false and misleading TV ads, you pretty much know what Martha McSally had to say. She stuck to the script.

But Militaristic Martha could not contain herself and towards the end of the debate sprung an obviously pre-planned new attack on Kyrsten Sinema, accusing her of “treason.” No, really. She went there. Arizona race gets ugly as Martha McSally accuses Kyrsten Sinema of ‘treason’ over 2003 Taliban comments:

In the closely watched Senate race in Arizona, “treason” was the accusation leveled Monday by Republican Rep. Martha McSally against her Democratic opponent, Rep. Kyrsten Sinema.

In the sole debate of the campaign, McSally, a retired Air Force colonel and combat pilot, asked Sinema to apologize for a 15-year-old radio interview about American intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, suggesting that her comments were tantamount to levying war against the United States. Sinema responded by accusing the Republican of playing dirty.

The two-term Republican congresswoman lobbed the “treason” charge near the end of the hour-long debate, which featured fierce disagreement over other issues, including immigration and health care. Instead of answering a question about climate change, McSally turned to address her opponent directly about a CNN report last week that brought to light comments made in 2003 by Sinema, then an activist with ties to the Green Party.

As part of her effort to publicize a February 2003 antiwar protest in Patriots Square Park in Phoenix, Sinema appeared on the radio show of a local libertarian activist. The host, Ernest Hancock, laid out a rambling hypothetical situation — difficult to follow at times — and concluded by asking Sinema if she would be okay with him joining the Taliban.

“Fine, I don’t care if you want to do that, go ahead,” Sinema replied, before adding: “What we’re talking about here are two different things. When you say, ‘We owe something to the world,’ my definition of owing something to the world does not involve war and destruction.”

She then added that she wanted to get back to discussing her antiwar position.

UPDATE: If you listen to the audio of the interview, it is even less than you might imagine. This is Sinema effectively saying “Yeah, whatever Dude, do whatever you want. Can we get back to talking about what I want to talk about?” No reasonable person could take away that Sinema was advocating for the Taliban. This is pure hyperventilation by the McSally campaign in an effort to manufacture outrage over what is a nothing burger.

McSally mischaracterized Sinema’s response as saying that “it was okay for Americans to join the Taliban to fight against us.”

“You said you had no problem with that,” she said. “Kyrsten, I want to ask right now whether you’re going to apologize to the veterans and me for saying it’s okay to commit treason?”

As Sinema began to reply, the Republican added, “It’s treason.”

The three-term Democratic congresswoman dismissed the inquiry without revising her 15-year-old remarks.

“Martha has chosen to run a campaign like the one you’re seeing right now, where she’s engaging in ridiculous attacks and smearing my campaign,” Sinema said. “And she’s just trying to cut, cut, cut and not share the full picture. But the truth is that I’ve always fought for Arizona, and I’ve been proud to serve our state in elected office for over 13 years.”

As the hosts told the candidates that time had elapsed, McSally repeated again, “It’s treason.”

Her campaign later circulated a definition of treason under U.S. code, which speaks of waging war against the United States or aiding its enemies. The penalty envisioned is death or imprisonment paired with a steep fine. Anyone found guilty is also barred from holding public office.

Two things. First, as I have pointed out before, Martha McSally has a problem with the First Amendment. McSally ad lies to denigrate the First Amendment rights of Americans:

There is also the subtext of the McSally ad objecting to Sinema having exercised her constitutional First Amendment rights of free speech and assembly to petition the government in opposition to the Iraq War — an unnecessary and illegal war sold by the Bush administration with falsified intelligence of “weapons of mass destruction” and war fever propaganda from the Bush administration.

Millions of Americans, and millions of people around the world, marched in protest and opposition to the Iraq War. McSally wants to convey the Bush administration view that “You are either with us, or you are against us,” i.e., you either support this unnecessary and illegal war, or you support “the enemy,” a false dichotomy designed to question the loyalty and patriotism of Americans who opposed the Iraq War, as it turned out, quite rightly so.

Apparently, McSally is still bitter and resentful of Americans’ opposition to the Iraq War. Too bad. Get over it, lady.

Secondly, if you want to talk about “treason” Martha, you should take it up with Putin’s puppet traitor Trump who is coming to Mesa to campaign for you on Friday. Trump fails to defend America against Russian attacks; there is a word for that. Helsinki is now synonymous with Munich for appeasement.

Trump is expected to stump for McSally on Friday in Mesa, the same day that former president George W. Bush – responsible for the unnecessary and illegal war in Iraq – is scheduled to hold a fundraising breakfast for the Republican candidate in Scottsdale, according to the Arizona Republic.

Martha McSally is unfit for political office. She has been a complete failure as my representative in Congress. She does not deserve a promotion to U.S. Senate. Go away, never to be heard from again.

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