Video: Tancredo Storms Off MSNBC Set, "Insulted" by Markos Moulitsas

Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet at 3:24 PM on November 7, 2009.

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In a raucus Friday-night segment on MSNBC's The Ed Show, Markos Moulitsas, founder of the Daily Kos, and former Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo had at each other over Thursday's Capitol Hill rally against President Obama and the Democrats' health-care bill.

After a spirited back-and-forth over the offensive signs -- like the one snapped by Think Progress' Lee Fang that labeled as "National Socialist Heath Care" a photograph of a pile of corpses from the Dachau concentration camp, or the one captured by AlterNet that asked "KEN-YA TRUST OBAMA" -- and rhetoric from the Capitol steps, the topic came of the medical system administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs. After Tancredo characterized the Democratic health care bill as "socialism", guest host David Shuster asked, "What about the V.A.? That's single payer."

Tancredo replied that veterans complain about problems with their V.A. care all the time, and saying that they'd rather have vouchers to use to pay for private health care. Moulitsas began to laugh, and Tancredo said, "Talk to the veterans; they talked to me, and that's what they said."

"Tom, I'm a veteran," Moutitsas replied. "I did not get a deferment because I was too depressed to fight in the war I supported in Vietnam."

Tancredo was an ardent supporter of the Vietnam War, but when his student deferments ran out, he failed his physical, he said, when he told recruiters he had been treated for depression, according to the Denver Post.

"That's a cheap, rotten, stupid thing to say," Tancredo charged. With that, he demanded an apology from Moulitsas, saying he wasn't going sit there and let " you try to insult me that way." When Moultisas refused to apologize, Tancredo pulled out his earpiece and left the set. Guest host David Shuster, who opened the show with a passionate commentary about the rally and, especially, the Dachau sign, invited Tancredo to return to the show.

VIDEO AFTER THE JUMP

Tagged as: tom tancredo, markos moulitsas, david shuster, vietnam deferment

Adele M. Stan is AlterNet's Washington editor.