Tommy Thompson’s new excuse: he had to go to the potty

Posted by Sheelzebub May 13, 2007 in Republicans, Bad Ideas

My god, I’ve heard of spinning when you’re under the gun, but this takes the cake. At the GOP debate last Thursday, Tommy Thompson was asked “If a private employer finds homosexuality immoral, should he be allowed to fire a gay worker?”

The presidential hopeful then said that it was up to the business owner to make that call whether to fire homos on staff.

“I think that is left up to the individual business. I really sincerely believe that that is an issue that business people have got to make their own determination as to whether or not they should be.”
The next day he was scrambling to backtrack, saying he misinterpreted the question because he didn’t hear it properly. I’m not sure how that explains his affirmative response — “Yes” — when he was then asked to give a definitive answer as to whether one should be fired for being gay.

On Saturday he forged ahead with a new excuse — his hearing aid was on the fritz and he needed to go to the potty because he was getting over the flu. (AP):

Tommy Thompson cited a dead hearing aid and an urgent need to use the bathroom in explaining on Saturday why he said at a GOP presidential debate that an employer should be allowed to fire a gay worker.

Speaking to reporters after giving an address at the state GOP convention, Thompson also said he was suffering from the flu and bronchitis and had been admitted to a hospital emergency room three days prior to the May 3 debate.

“Nobody knows that,” Thompson said. “I’ve been very sick. … I was very sick the day of the debate. I had all of the problems with the flu and bronchitis that you have, including running to the bathroom. I was just hanging on. I could not wait until the debate got off so I could go to the bathroom.”

…”I didn’t hear the question. All I was thinking about was getting off the stage,” Thompson said. “I said it, I’m sorry, and it won’t happen again but it’s not my record. … There’s nothing discriminatory about me at all.”

That gaffe, as well as one in April when he told a Jewish group that earning money is “part of the Jewish tradition,” have been a distraction for Thompson’s campaign.

…”How many times is he going to say something that’s completely offensive to the majority of Americans before people start to say, ‘What’s going on here?’” said Jason Stephany, political director for the Wisconsin Democratic Party.

Hat tip, Ginny.

14 Responses to “Tommy Thompson’s new excuse: he had to go to the potty”  

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  1. Armagh444
    May 13, 2007 at 11:18 am

    Those of us who dealt with King Tommy for the sixteen years of his reign aren’t surprised in the least by the way he’s been handling himself on the campaign trail. While he is extremely good at retail politics (thus, the length of his stay in the Governor’s Mansion), but he cannot handle being on a big stage.

    There’s a reason why my Mom (a lifelong Wisconsin resident and 30-year state government employee) burst out laughing when I told her he had announced his intention to run. Between his notorious case of foot-in-mouth disease, his tendency to show up drunk in public at precisely the wrong moments (he made quite a display of himself at a Packer game a few years back), and the fact that he’s got more skeletons in his closet than the standard mortuary, he doesn’t have a chance in Hel at pulling down the nomination.


  2. PhoenixRising
    May 13, 2007 at 11:48 am

    and if that doesn’t make you want this guy to be making the call in the Situation Room, I guess nothing will.


  3. RepubAnon
    May 13, 2007 at 12:01 pm

    Given what he has for brains, wouldn’t his head be more empty AFTER he went to the bathroom?


  4. Lester Hunt
    May 13, 2007 at 12:08 pm

    Pam,
    It must not be so hard to misunderstand that question, given that you just did so yourself. It wasn’t “whether one should be fired for being gay.” It was whether the state should allow one to do so.


  5. Richard
    May 13, 2007 at 12:17 pm

    He started using the hearing aid excuse on Maher’s show last week but the potty addition is a new add on. When the first excuse doesn’t work, build your excuses with additional add-ons till you reach the appropriate level of totla cr*p-ola.


  6. Richard
    May 13, 2007 at 12:18 pm

    Oh, and Lester Hunt:

    Either way that question is framed, the correct answer for RATIONAL human beings is NOT “Yes.”


  7. Alierakieron
    May 13, 2007 at 12:21 pm

    I was gonna say: does anyone have a link to the Packer’s incident? I hear it was high-larious.


  8. hbsweet
    May 13, 2007 at 12:24 pm

    Guess somebody should have worn his Depends.

    And didn’t GOP Luuv Prexy, Ronald Reagan, always pretend he couldn’t hear inconvenient questions, too? Of course, he had the good sense to pretend not to hear them when they were asked–not after he’d already answered them.


  9. mythago
    May 13, 2007 at 4:56 pm

    Lester, the original question is right up there in the post. It’s a little hard for you to re-write it, given that.


  10. paul
    May 13, 2007 at 8:14 pm

    “I had no idea I was going to be on a presidential debate stage, and as a middle-aged man I have no real understanding of my bladder capacity, so the need to urinate just caught me entirely by surprise and utterly destroyed my concentration. But I’d do much better in a real crisis, I assure you.”

    At least he’s wasting the money of republican donors (although then again he’s enriching republican campaign consultants and media types, so it’s probably a wash).


  11. Blue Jean
    May 13, 2007 at 9:07 pm

    Good lord, what is this? A first grade spelling bee?


  12. Samantha Vimes
    May 14, 2007 at 1:12 am

    When distracted, appropriate answers:

    “I’m sorry, I can’t continue, my illness is distracting me from this debate. Excuse me.”

    “Please, move to the next candidate, and ask me again when I return; I have to deal with something urgent off stage.”

    “Can you clarify the question?”

    No one with any sense comes up with a full answer to a question they didn’t understand. His excuse makes him look worse.


  13. Libertarian
    May 14, 2007 at 8:44 am

    I’m still trying to figure out why he’s backtracking from giving the right answer.


  14. Sailorman
    May 14, 2007 at 6:58 pm

    It’s a poorly phrased question. The answer should be “depends on the company.”

    I mean, can’t I fire someone I hate? Now for me, those happen to be fundamentalist Christians and not gay people. But damn, I don’t want to give up that right.

    I’m self-employed. What if I hire a secretary and she starts going all prolife fundie on me? It’s not like I can just get HR to move her to a different department.

    The national restrictions on discrimination are great at the corporate level. But the fact that they don’t apply to tiny businesses isn’t obviously a bad thing.


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