It didn't take many words for Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) to shut down President Barack Obama's former aide, Ben Rhodes, on Thursday after the foreign policy adviser made a comment about Republican obituaries:
Scalise very nearly lost his life when a gunman opened fire on a practice session for the Republican congressional baseball team in Virginia this spring. "That night, it could have gone the other way a few times," Scalise recalled. "When I got to the hospital, they said I was within a minute of death if they didn't get some blood back into my system."
Scalise's reprimand of Rhodes' comment, then, carried an extra weight:
With many contentious issues on the table this year, tensions have been high between Republicans and Democrats — as well as between members of a divided GOP. A member of the Republican National Committee in Nevada apologized in July for sharing a Medium post directed at Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who'd just undergone surgery for a blood clot, titled "Please Just F‑‑‑ing Die Already."