DE-Sen: O'Donnell on evolution: "What I believe is irrelevant" (but he's a freaking Marxist!)
This exchange from last night's Delaware Senate debate pretty much sums up Christine O'Donnell's candidacy:
The short (and only slightly fictionalized) version:
WOLF: Do you believe in evolution?
O'DONNELL: What I believe is irrelevant, but schools should be allowed to teach that creationism is equally valid.
WOLF: Can you please help me pick up my jaw that has just dropped to the floor?
O'DONNELL: Well, Chris Coons is a Marxist. He said so himself!
COONS: What is this crazy teahadist talking about? I made a sarcastic joke in an article for a student newspaper and now she thinks I'm a Stalinist? What a lunatic!
O'DONNELL: But Glenn Beck told me that you were a Marxist revolutionary with the Tides Foundation.
COONS: Yeah, okay. Try actually reading the article next time and maybe you'd figure out you can't always trust the conspiracy theories. I mean, you're so whacked out I bet you also believe that when I went to Kenya I was the midwife during the birth of Barack Obama.
O'DONNELLL: You were? What a stunning thing to say. I'm so glad you can finally admit that. Hold on while I Twitter your confession to Orly.
Full transcript below the fold.
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BLITZER: Let's give you a chance to respond to some of the things she said because in a television appearance back in 1998 on Bill Maher's show you said evolution is a myth. Do you believe evolution is a myth?
O'DONNELL: I believe that the local -- I was talking about what a local school taught and that should be taught -- that should be decided on the local community. But please let me respond to what he just said.
BLITZER: We'll let you respond but answer the question. Do you believe evolution is a myth?
O'DONNELL: Local schools should make that decision. I made that remark based on -- BLITZER: What do you believe?
O'DONNELL: What I believe is irrelevant.
BLITZER: Why is it irrelevant?
O'DONNELL: Because what I would support ...
BLITZER: Voters want to know.
O'DONNELL: What I will support in Washington, D.C. is the ability for the local school system to decide what is taught in their classrooms and what I was talking about on that show was a classroom that was not allowed to teach creationism as an equal theory as evolution. That is against their constitutional rights and that is an overreaching arm of the government.
But, please allow me at least the full minute to respond to what he said because he said these statements that we made should be taken into consideration when casting your vote. So then I would be remiss not to bring up the fact that my opponent has recently said that it was studying under a Marxist professor that made him become a Democrat. So when you look at his position on things like raising taxes, which is one of the tenets of Marxism; not supporting eliminating death tax, which is a tenet of Marxism -- I would argue that there are more people who support my Catholic faith than his Marxist beliefs, and I'm using his own words.
KARIBJANIAN: We're going to clarify that.
BLITZER: Because a lot of people remember, because they've learned in last few weeks you did once describe yourself when you were in college a long time ago as a bearded Marxist.
COONS: Great question, Wolf. I hope folks will go and read the article. It's an article that I wrote as a senior the day of our commencement speech and the title and the content of that clearly makes it obvious that it was a joke. There was a group of folks who I had shared a room with, my roommates junior year, who are in the Young Republican Club and who thought when I returned from Kenya and registered as a Democrat that doing so was proof that I had gone all the way over to the far left end, and so they jokingly called me a bearded Marxist. If you take five minutes and read the article, it's clear on the face of it, it was a joke. Despite that, my opponent and lots of folks in the right wing media have endlessly spun this. I am not now, nor have I ever been, anything but a clean-shaven capitalist.
O'DONNELL: Well, I would -- I would stand to disagree because, first of all, if you're saying what I said on a comedy show is relevant to this election, then absolutely you writing an article, forget the bearded Marxist comment, you writing an article saying that you learned your beliefs from an articulate, intelligent Marxist professor and that's what made you become a Democrat, that should send chills up the spine of every Delaware voter because then if you compare that statement to your policies --
COONS: If it were accurate, if it were true, I'd agree. But it's not accurate. It's not true.
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