Talking Points Memo reports

Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) became the latest Republican on Tuesday to speak out against vaccine mandates, saying: "We should not have an oppressive state telling us what to do."
"I want that to be my choice as a parent," Duffy, a father of seven, said said during an appearance on MSNBC's "The Rundown With José Díaz-Balart." "I know my kids best. I know what morals and values are right for my children. I think we should not have an oppressive state telling us what to do"....

The Wisconsin congressman explicitly defended vaccine critics, saying: "I think a lot of parents who are smart, well-read — they're the ones who are choosing not to vaccinate. And oftentimes, those who may not be as well-read — they are vaccinating. So to say you just have a bunch of crackpots who are choosing not to do this to their children, I just don't think that's actually true."

Duffy, a former attorney, said that he prefers to "pick and choose" which vaccines his children receive.

"I vaccinate my kids on most things, but then there are some things where I'm like, 'This may not work for me and my values and my family,'" he said.

Charles Pierce responds "'Values' are an important part of the human immunological system, apparently. Party of ideas, people!"

Indeed, it's not only some two-bit congressman (upon joining the party leadership, he would become three-bit) from the Koch midwest subsidiary formerly known as the State of Wisconsin.   There is Rand Paul, whom Pierce refers to as the ophthalmologist who "obviously is so willing to prostitute in exchange for three points in the next Iowa Poll."  Skipping over the ownership clause in that Emancipation Proclamation thing, Paul argued "The state doesn't own your children. Parents own the children, and it is an issue of freedom and public health."

While in England on a junket intended primarily to enable him to claim foreign policy experience, the New Jersey governor contended

.... parents need "some measure of choice" on vaccinating their children, stirring alarm that such views would hurt the fight against a measles outbreak, his office moved quickly to clarify his position.

The dustup overshadowed the second day of what Christie has planned mainly as a trade mission.

Monday morning, the Republican governor, a potential candidate for president in 2016, responded to a question about the spread of measles by saying that while he and his wife had their children vaccinated, parental concerns warrant "balance."

"It's much more important, I think, what you think as a parent than what you think as a public official," Christie told reporters. Christie had just toured one of the biotechnology company MedImmune's laboratories. The company makes a flu vaccine.

(Later, a Christie spokesperson somewhat walked back the comments, but not sufficiently that he can't revert in Iowa to his Monday position without admitting to a change of mind.)

Contrasting the Prince of Pander's position on vaccination with the latter's heavy-handed and politically expedient detention- uh, er, quarantining- of Traci Hickox over Ebola paranoia, Will Bunch remarks

Huh? It guess this proves one thing: That going to Cambridge doesn't make you any smarter. I also guess Christie realizes that he's losing the Koch Brothers primary to his fellow governor Scott Walker, so he's hoping to win the Jenny McCarthy primary instead. What this really shows is that Mr. Tell-It-Like_it-Is-Sit-Down-And-Shut-Up really is the kind of guy who likes to stick his finger in the air and guess where the political winds are blowing. But yet again, he's guessed wrong, which is the real reason he'll never be president.

“Mary Pat and I have had our children vaccinated, and we think that it’s an important part of being sure we protect their health and the public health," stated the governor, echoing Paul, who called vaccines "a good thing" and "one of the biggest medical breakthroughs we've had" which "are good for public health."  They are darned important for your children's health, Paul and Christie agree, but we'd just as soon your children not get them. Compassionate conservatism, folks!

That's not the only reason Chris Christie should not be President of the USA or even governor of a state.  Consider also his assertion "That's the best expression I can give you of my opinion. It's much more important I think what you think as a parent than what you think as a public official,"

Chris Christie is paid $175,000 per year presiding over a state of 8.9 million people with a budget of $33 billion. And collectively his children are more important than the 2+ million children living in the state (obscene video of the governor taking his job seriously, below).   That is a public official with a bad set of priorities to go with his nearly unparalleled dishonesty.











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