0 decades but for every comedy there's been more than one tragedy. getting this into our heads is a worthy go and i give christopher lawford and patrick kennedy a lot of credit for devoting themselves now to getting it in our heads. and that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "the ed show" with ed schultz starts right now. good evening, americans, and welcome to "the ed show" from new york. a dangerous side to the gun debate rears its ugly head. and the hoax at notre dame that has america talking. this is "the ed show." let's get to work. >> do you think the president just doesn't have the guts to admit it, is not a believer in the second amendment. >> fdr had a bit of this king kong complex also. >> the republican resistance to the president is exploding. tyranny. hitler. stalin. and this. >> i consider it a form of child abuse. >> the righties are off the rails. i'll break down the rabid reaction to the president with eugene robinson and caryn finney. >> too many in this country have been silent too long. those 20 beautiful children who not one. maybe these righties just don't know enough about the constitution. perhaps there is someone who could help them out. let's try former bush attorney general michael muck kasey. >> it seems to be by definition an abuse of power, a power grab, if you will. no? >> it is -- politically it is a power grab, yes. >> politically is it then unconstitutional in some instances? >> i don't think it's unconstitutional in the sense that i don't think it's something you that could get a court to find unconstitutional. >> uh-oh. it's not the answer hannity was looking for. maybe he should try asking it in a different way. >> so did you think that obama care was unconstitutional? >> did i? >> did you agree with the majority opinion? >> the supreme court said it was unconstitutional. >> you did? >> so you agree with john roberts? >> yes. >> you did. i'm surprised. because in that case -- so through the use of the commerce clause we can now mandate that people buy things? >> no, he didn't say you could use the commerce clause. he said you could not use the commerce clause. >> right. >> what he said was it was a tax. >> must have been a mix-up in the prenotes of the preinterview. but let's see a shot in freeze frame. this is the face of a truly confused man. the elevator doesn't go all the way to the top here, folks. if only sean hannity would listen to his boss, he might not be so confused. "the constitutional right about guns is for self-defense and hunting. founders did not mean modern weapons of war." lining up the crazy is not a difficult task for the right wing these days. but this rhetoric and hysteria i think is very dangerous. there is no basis to call the president of the united states a tyrant or a dictator, and no president ever deserves to be compared to stalin or hitler. but of course it continues. it happened earlier this week. let's have a little perspective here. first of all, there's nothing in the executive orders that they can name that smacks of legislation. in fact, the executive orders are fairly mild. and second, president obama's view of the second amendment is precise ly precisely antonin scalia's view of the second amendment. the president has long believed it protects an individual right to keep and bear arms but he agrees with scalia that you can restrict the ownership of "dangerous and unusual weapons." like assault weapons. so when they're arguing with the president and calling him stalin and calling him hitler, they are arguing with the most conservative justice on the most conservative court we've had in 100 years. >> caryn, where is the responsibility of republicans? do they have an obligation to push back on this extreme rhetoric? >> absolutely, they do. think about the cowardice. here they are accusing the president of using children as human shields. and yet i don't -- i think maybe chris christie is the only republican we've heard actually come out and say how disgusting it is that the nra is using the president's children in a web ad that does two things -- list building and fund-raising. if we're going to talk about the use of children, i have not heard a single one take responsibility for that. i think overall the tone and the tenor of this conversation is going to be a big problem for the republicans because remember, we've got a number of battles coming up where the republicans are already on defense. when it comes to immigration reform, we know the opportunity for their rhetoric to get out of control is quite big. on this they're not talking about gun safety, reducing, you know, gun violence, and this kind of extreme rhetoric pulls them farther to the right. so if the leadership of this party doesn't get control, they're going to have to answer for the likes of rush limbaugh and some of those other whack jobs. >> you know, eugene, you have a united states senator from kentucky who is making comments about the president. you wonder how schooled he is on the constitution. and you wonder why republicans don't pull him off to lunch and say you know, what you've got to kind of correct this a little bit. i mean, their silence is deafening on this. >> he talks about it a lot. rand paul, senator paul, has always talked about the constitution a lot. but clearly here he's not on thin ice. there's no ice there at all. there's simply nothing there. and he doesn't mention one specific item in the president's list of executive actions, they weren't all executive orders as he claims, one single action that supposedly violates the constitution. what is he talking about? >> you know, ed, on the politics of this let's be really -- let's call this for what it is. both marco rubio and rand paul are looking at 2016. so they are speaking about the president with the same kind of disrespectful receiptric hetoric that we've been hearing from the tea party darlings for quite some time. so clearly part of their motivation is looking ahead for their own political interest because there's not a lot of substance here to back up what they're saying. >> why would a united states senator from florida, rubio, question whether the president has guts? after what this president has done and the tough calls that he has had to make. i can't think of another word. is it childish? >> it is childish. particularly -- i mean, what gutsy thing has marco rubio done? let's see. he proposed some immigration reform ideas that are pretty much like the president's. so i don't think we've got an original idea out of him. i don't think we've gotten a bold idea out of him. it doesn't take a lot to go on fox news and say that the president doesn't -- i mean, come on, right? >> okay. the question to you, eugene robinson. is this all dangerous? >> well, it is dangerous. it is dangerous when rhetoric heats up to this level. it's dangerous especially when you're talking about guns. and look, there's an attempt to create the impression that obama and the mean democrats want to take away your guns. very specifically, no one is talking about that. no one wants to do that. and in fact, as i mentioned, the president's view of the second amendment is really quite conservative. he doesn't want to take your guns. he just wants to make this place safe so we don't have newtown massacres every year. >> well, i don't hear democrats talking like this. there's no comparative vernacular we can use that come from the democrats on this. it will be interesting to see if there are any republicans that might step forward and say you know, let's tone it down a little bit. we all know what we want, we don't have to say what has been said so far. karen finney and eugene robinson, great to have you on "the ed show" tonight. thank you so much. remember to answer tonight's question there at the bottom of the screen. share your thoughts with us on twitter @edshow and on facebook. we always want to know what you think. coming up, a moment of truth for democrats who were afraid to lose their nra class a rating. a former congresswoman will join me. and she made a tough vote that ended her congressional career, but it was the right thing to do. stay with us. we'll have that story next. 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