Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) has posted this YouTube video, condemning the use of Holocaust imagery at yesterday’s Capitol Hill Tea Party, and calling out Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) for organizing the event, as well as the Republican leaders who attended.
Israel made it clear that he believes in the basic right to free speech, and that he took an oath to defend the Constitution and the rights of people that he disagrees with: “But with that right comes a responsibility by leaders to condemn that kind of expression. I just cannot believe that Congresswoman Bachmann sponsored and brought to the American people the use of images from the Holocaust, actual photographs of the skeletal remains of people from the crematoria, in order to make a point about the health insurance bill.”
“I can’t believe that Congresswoman Bachmann would stand where she stood, and see those images, and not have the common decency to say, ‘I disagree with the use of those images.’ I think that she owes the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust an apology. She owes us all an apology. And I’m waiting. We’re all waiting.
