Beto O’Rourke: Catch a rising rhetorical star

Watch out for Beto O’Rourke. At a town hall earlier this month, the Democratic candidate for Senator in Texas was asked whether kneeling NFL players are disrespectful “to our country, to our veterans.”

After carefully acknowledging the legitimacy of the question and the point of view behind it, O’Rourke gave a litany of civil rights martyrs, and said, “The freedoms that we have were purchased not just by those in uniform … but also by those who took their lives into their hands riding those Greyhound buses, the Freedom Riders …”

And after another litany of civil rights protesters, O’Rourke concludes, “And I can think of nothing more American than to stand up, or take a knee, for your rights, anytime, anywhere, anyplace.”

See the video, and behold a rising rhetorical star. —DM