Coburn Compares Political Science Funding To Waterboarding

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who has been leading a crusade against political science funding, on Tuesday compared the debt such spending would create to waterboarding.

...Coburn said that continuing to spend taxpayer money on programs that don't deserve it will amount to the "waterboarding" of American children.

"We're going to waterboard them," Coburn said Tuesday on the Senate floor. "We're going to flood them with debt."

Coburn has argued that political science isn't worth spending federal money on, because Americans can just learn about politics from cable news.

Get HuffPost Politics On Facebook and Twitter!

Comments

[andycan]

Coburn must have been subjected to water-boarding a tad too long. It is enough to see his benighted face to know he is incompetent to exercise his duties.

[ClareP]

Republican power depends on dumbing people down. Why fund anything done by universities? Why make education possible at all? The free market can handle everything, right?

[Bartolo27]

yeb you betcha get ya some learning bout political science on the FOX cable news program.

College? What for? No way. Why go to college when you can learn yourself everything you need to know in High school?

College is a waste of time n money. Oklahoma is OK!

[Bacygirl]

You know, O.U. boasts the highest number of national merit scholars attending a public university in the United States. The thing about Oklahoma is folks can get a good education there, but they LEAVE!

[mcmutter]

Coburn is such a drama queen - everything is the end of the world to that guy.....

[MaybeMilo]

If you think he's bad, get a load of the folks who elected him.

[hibiscuscottage]

Muskogee is quite a distance from Tulsa. Coburn lives in Muskogee not Tulsa. Also, there is not a "central Tulsa". It is called Midtown Tulsa. In Midtown Tulsa, quite a number of Democrats live here.

[hibiscuscottage]

The comment above was an answer to a comment concerning Tom Coburn being let loose on the streets of "central Tulsa".. Coburn live in Muskogee.

[hibiscuscottage]

My husband and I graduated from a Tulsa Public High School in 1978. We were exposed to Chemistry, Biology, Political Science, History and Shakespeare. We also graduated from The University of Oklahoma. We both attended numerous classes in Political Science.

I suppose we were just brainwashed.

How in the world did this man get into medical school? Something is wrong with him. I wonder if he has had a social disease that eats away brain cells that starts with a "S"?

[Bacygirl]

Hey Fellow Okie

The real marvel is that there are so many of our fellow okies who were stupid enough to vote this neanderthal into office. He is so heartless, I can't imagine him being an OB/GYN. Then again, I can!

If we put him in jail with his treasonous buddy, Jimbo Inhofe, we could use all that bribe money they got from lobbyists to finance poli sci.

My motto: "An ignorant electorate is a republican win."

[HeevenSteven]

We peepl kin jest wach cabl nooz to lern 'bout poltiks, yup, we sher kin.

[kpowellokc]

I cringe whenever he opens his mouth but at least he declared Obama "his friend

[TeeLolly]

If I were Obama, I would take that as an insult ...

[rad21]

C-span presented an illustrious speech on Healthcare reform from the Senate floor by Dr. Coburn. He was full of contradictions! Senator Coburn had the luxury of time. I am restricted by Huff Po to a few hundred words. So to the point. Senator accepts insurance companies need competition to bring the cost down. However he is against Public Option, and not called for removing the anti-trust exemptions for insurance companies. So we have the classical double-speak.

The senator/ physician was spreading false rumors about the Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER). He described CER as "restricting choice" of care. This is similar to Senator Grassley's "pulling the plug on grandma". Dr. Coburn should know that insurance should pay for scientifically proven APPROPRIATE medical care (Best Practice Patterns). The patient and / or doctor can elect to receive / deliver over-treatment, under-treatment or inappropriate of their mutual choosing and at their mutual expense. i.e. the patient should pay the doctor/hospital; and not waste the limited resource of the general public. This is what's currently causing healthcare in the US to be twice / person compared to peer countries; with lower benchmark scores to show. Another example of Dr. Coburn speaking from both sides of his mouth.

[LJIESQ]

Rev. Coburn can't help himself, his religious fundamentalist fanaticism strangles off the blood supply to his brain.

[toddag]

Saying that Americans can learn about politics from cable news is like saying that people can learn about cattle by eating a hamburger.

Somehow I think he would be more supportive if it was "Political Religion" instead of "Political Science". Repubs just don't like science.

[Michael Valentine]

Wow ignorance is king in Ok.

[jsgaetano]

But... don't ALL good conservatives support waterboarding? Wasn't Cheney just telling us how it's good for your skin, cures cancer, etc?

Maybe Coburn was expressing his dislike for surfing. Surfing = beach = California­... and everyone knows how much conservatives hate California. Almost as much as they hate New York City!

[gnomic]

Coburn learned all he needed to know from Fox News. Of course he doesn't see any problem having only one thought repeated over and over and over. Why think at all? Stare into the bright light. It will tell you what to think.

Coburn: Unfit for public office. Questionably fit to be human.