what does that say about the conservative movement? i think you ve got two parts. the one is there might be something kookey about this guy. i think the linking arms is the first part of this. the general argument, the principled idea that is talked about or espoused in this case. the government right to do what it was doing with respect to the land that was in dispute, the use of the land. over the last 20 years and all of that. i didn t even get that part of it, michael. we still need to know what the real dispute there was. from a legal standpoint this guy there is no standing here for this guy. that s obvious. without a legal argument? i ll be honest i can t speak to all of that because i don t know what the ultimate motivation beyond sort of the popular sentiment among some conservatives that the constitution is under assault. these become rallying cries
and his rights to you know, to be the rancher and defend his property when in fact legally he was wrong. right. that s it. i wonder if somebody like rand paul is going to sit back and say why does this keep happening? let s listen to that. the issue with clive bundy has absolutely nothing to do with this party. zero. he is a rancher that had a beef with the federal government s continued overreach and suddenly this became a question when he made inappropriate comments about what every republican needs to answer for. that is ridiculous. jonathan, what do you make of that? it s not like there were no republicans, no major republicans standing up for this guy and making a huge issue out of this. right. here s the thing. the republican party wouldn t have the problem it has with the cliven bundies in its midst if a grown-up had come up at the beginning when the tea party was getting up and running and said
what s happening here within our party on the fringes of our party is not right and we have to do we have to speak out about this. i went back because i remembered a new york times story from february of 2010, and it was so frightening to me because it talked about how there s a loose alliance of protesters from the far right fringe who were glomming onto the tea party, the legitimate folks who had concerns about the deficit and the economic direction of the country, they were glomming onto the party. and what was interesting and what s ironic now is that in the lead paragraph of that piece i said that i urged republican national party chairman michael steele and other republicans to start speaking out against these people before they lose control of their party. here we are four years later, and we re talking about a guy who is an outlaw who is breaking federal law who is a hero to a lot of people within now the base of the republican party who
willing to make them into folk hero, whether it s bundy or ted nugent or even the rodeo clown with the obama mask before them? these people seem to find a comfortable home on the political right, there s until they go one step too far. the former chair of the republican national committee. jonathan capehart, both are msnbc contributors. i ll start with you. i guess the question of this whole saga raises for me is the republican party, the conservative movement. is what does it say to you that so many prominent conservatives. sean hannity, rand paul, we re talking about big names here. what does it say they looked at this guy, a guy being backed by a militia that had people talking about using women answer human shields, a guy who wouldn t recognize the existence of the federal government. what does it say to you that they are able to look at him and it doesn t register to them that hey, there might be cooky ideas.
write a letter demanding a state investigation of the blm s actions as a way to get into this issue of transferring the federal land to the state land, never asking some key questions such as really, can the state really take care of that land any better than the feds? does any one think that cliven bunld he got away with not paying his bills for 20 years to the federal government would have paid the state government? so yeah, there still that out there. some of the prominent folks and shawn han i if i got out his words and started spewing all of that. but they still sympathize with this guy. no question about it. thank you, up next do you remember the republican presidential candidate who was a pizza king? contestants on jeopardy did, the side show is next. @ñ