Dick Armey Offers Advice to Republicans Upon his Departure.

demonize is kind of a strong word, don't you think rimrocker?? particularly when rush merely called him an "obstructionist." i've heard politicians called a lot worse...the idea that rush is inciting violence against daschle, as daschle suggests, is nothing short of idiotic.

 

This has been posted before, but below is a transcript from a July Rush show. Rush also mentioned Daschle as part of the "Axis of Evil" in a worae diatribe than this one (but one I don't have time to look up.)

Speaking of Rush, Ref may not take him seriously, but his party does. Why else would they make him an honorary member of Congress and fax him talking points every morning?
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Rush:

I have a question for you, folks, and I know that this is going... you have to listen very carefully here, this is going to push the envelope.

Does Tom Daschle have the gravitas to be Senate Majority Leader? Is this what we want in a Senate Majority Leader? I think the tables need to be turned here. Rather than accept the assumption that Dasche is a wizard, a brainiac, utterly qualified and competent, we need to turn the tables and ask what is he bringing to the table. What in the world is Tom Daschle doing for the United States of America? How is what Tom Daschle is doing enhancing our reputation or improving our position?

How many different versions of Satan, the devil, have you seen in your life? I mean, the comic book devil with the red face and the horns, seen that one. We've seen the Satanic devil of the horror films. We've seen the devil portrayed as just an average man, a human being, in the movie "Rosemary's Baby". We've seen the comic devil of TV shows. We've even seen the smooth, tempting devil in Hollywood moves. Is Tom Daschle simply another way to portray a devil?

I know: [in voice of people complaining] 'Rush, how could you? You don't say this about anybody! Oh, Rush, please back off, don't go too far, you're going to come off as so, oh, no, Rush, please don't. He's so laid back, he's so soft-spoken, he's so friendly, he's so, how could you say that, please."

Folks, look: Is he so laid back? Is he so soft-spoken? Is Daschle so friendly? You tell me. Remember what Daschle said when he became the Senate Majority Leader? He blathered on about bipartisanship and working with the President and how he came to the job with humility and how he realized now that as Majority Leader his responsibilities were different - that he had to work to bring competing sides together for the good of the American people. And from that day forward he's been on TV just about every day doing everything he can to keep the people of this country divided.

There is no desire on Daschle's part to bring people together. There certainly is no bipartisanship flowing through his veins, nor is he leading any bipartisan effort. There is no working with the President of any of this. He's criticizing Bush, he's attempting to further the notion that Bush is illegitimate, incompetent, unintelligent. He tries to block the President every day, he downgrades the President every day and he devalues the - he tries to - every day, folks. It's his job - every day. His job is not about doing good things for the country. His job is in his mind is simply about destroying George W. Bush for pure political purpose. It's totally personal. It is the politics of personal destruction with Tom Daschle, hidden behind this laid-back, soft-spoken, so friendly demeanor.

Let me ask you this: He says he wants to work with the President - what would he be doing if he didn't want to work with the President? Can you imagine if his objective - stated objective - was to oppose the President? How would it be any different from his current behavior? Just yesterday, as Bush winged his way to Europe on a crucial mission to lead our allies into the 21st century, with Europe's flagging economy, talking about mutual defense in the 21st century, realistic environmental solutions, solutions for world poverty, not ths stupid Kyoto stuff and not allowing the United States to be robbed blind by the UN and the poor nations of the world, up pops "El Diablo", Tom Daschle, and his devilish deviltry, claiming that George Bush is incompetent, criticizing Bush at the very moment he is engaging in these efforts to improve our relationship with these world leaders.

He's, um, no, I went through the routine. Let me stretch this so-called devil analogy a little bit further. I have to take a break here because it goes on a little while, but stick with me because I want to analogize this a little bit more when we come back - because this guy is getting away with a public media persona that is totally 180 degrees out of phase of who he really is and what he's really doing.

[break]

[singing along to "Devil in a Blue Dress"] Mitch Rider, the Detroit Wheels, Devil in a Blue Dress, as we continue our devil analogy with Tom Daschle. Hang in there folks. Now don't go bonkers - the devil comes in many disguises as we all know.

 

The hypocracy of some democrats is laughable.
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Monday, Dec. 9, 2002 9:21 p.m. EST

'Low Negro Tolerance' Gore Demands Lott Apology

Judging from his demands Monday that Sen. Trent Lott apologize for praising one-time Dixiecrat Sen. Strom Thurmond at his 100th birthday party, you'd hardly know that just two years ago, Al Gore himself was accused of having a "low Negro tolerance level."

Then there's the Gore family's African-American former maid, who complained in the midst of the 2000 presidential campaign that young Al's mom and dad used to make her wait in their hot car during the 1950s while the family ate in "whites only" restaurants.

Still, none of that stopped Gore from joining the racial sensitivity police Monday afternoon, with a bizarre demand that Lott either apologize or suffer censure at the hands of his colleagues.

"Trent Lott made a statement that I think is a racist statement, yes," the former VP said. "That's why I think he should withdraw those comments or I think the United States Senate should undertake a censure of those comments."

Give the Gore Democrats credit for chutzpah. They know neither the press nor the GOP will ever call them on their own racial transgressions, just as they ignored the complaints of Mattie Lucy Payne, who told her story to a small-town Tennessee newspaper in September 2000.

"Our parents said to work for good white folks -- and that's what we did," Payne recalled to a local reporter, in comments that were picked up by the Drudge Report. For more than 30 years, she had cooked and kept house for the Gores at their Carthage, Tenn., farm. There Payne, now 91, even helped raise the future vice president.

When Al Gore Sr.'s senatorial duties required the family to travel to D.C., they'd sometimes stop for lunch along the way - often deep in the heart of the segregated South of the 1950s.

"On those rides, Payne recalls being kept in the backseat of the car -- as the Gore family dined in 'Whites Only' restaurants!" Drudge recounted. "Payne says she complained bitterly about the high temperatures in the car while she waited."

"Albert Jr. would bring out a sandwich to the car because I was not allowed in the restaurant," Gore's former maid recalled for the CURRENT LINES newspaper of Upper Cumberland. "We didn't know any better, that's the way we grew up."

A month before Ms. Payne went public with her tale of racial woe at the hands of the Gores, four African-American Secret Service agents assigned to the veep's security detail filed a lawsuit against him, claiming his campaign had passed them over for promotions because of their race. Gore, they said, had done nothing to remedy the situation.

The lawsuit prompted Georgia Democrat Cynthia McKinney to remark that Gore's "Negro tolerance level has never been too high."

"I've never known him to have more than one black person around him at any given time," she added.

In a statement issued by her office, the black congresswoman complained: "That these black officers had no response from Gore's staff is symptomatic of a larger problem. Gore would like these problems to just go away, but they'll never go away if they're not addressed."

Under fire from the Democrat Party establishment, McKinney was forced to retract her comments.

 

What I was saying is that you claimed Gore was bent on personal destruction in order to ward off criticism of (and defend) indefensible comments by Lott. If anything, you should be criticizing Lott for self-destruction and hurting the "Big Tent" ideas of the GOP.

Sorry about your extended family. I'd like to know more if you are so inclined. Sadly, on the larger topic of personal destruction I think we both could produce lots of verbiage that would support our sides. (Though I think I could produce more. )
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Off to a conference in Albuquerque for the rest of the week, then down to Tejas to see the folks. They've retired to Horseshoe Bay outside of Marble Falls... Ah, one week in the midst of retired, blue-haired country-club Republicans. Now that's how the holidays are meant to be spent! If I survive, I will try to check in at times.

 

Sadly I'll give Refman the benefit of the doubt as I think that he actually means this. It is mindblowing that he can disregard the whole millions of dollars of rightwing investigation money,funding of lawsuits and the hounding of Clinton.

I'll guess will soon have another proclamation from Refman that is a moderate, neutral fact finding guy who has no particular ideology.

 

I don't get how the second quote has anything to do with Clinton. Also, did Clinton protest A Beautiful Mind?

 

If that's the best you can do...

Like rimrocker said, we could go round and round about which side is worse. Bottom line, they both do it, and they both do it well (or bad).

 

I agree with you to an extent. However, I just don't think he's really unique in his "politics of personal destruction" as you and other conservatives think he is. Two of those quotes were huge stretches at best.

 

Sorry to resurrect this thread, but I couldn't let this slide.

First, let's see a source Phi. It looks like you got it off of Newsmax, but I have yet to find a source for Current Lines of Cumberland, which is where Drudge claims the story came from.

Second, regarding the agents, the Secret Service is part of the Treasury Department and agents are not hired or fired by the Pres. and VP. The suit referenced in the story revolved around alleged misconduct by the Treasury Department, not by Gore. Among other things, the lawsuit claimed that the Secret Service had quotas for agents guarding Clinton and Gore. I'm not sure where the McKinney quotes came from, but I'd be surprised if they were relayed in context and it does not matter anyway as she is a nut.

Third, regarding the nanny question, here's a section of of the David Maraniss bio of Gore:

The Gores personally felt the evils of segregation during the long car trips they began making in 1939 between Carthage, Tenn., and Washington after [Al Gore’s father] was elected to Congress. They took along a black nanny, Ocie Bell Hunt, to look after their young daughter, Nancy. On the first drive, according to historian Tony Badger, they could find no restrooms for Hunt to use and had an exhausting time searching for a motel that would lodge an interracial traveling party. Finally they came upon a little motel in east Tennessee that would allow the Gores and Hunt to stay overnight, provided they arrived after dark and left before other guests in the morning. The trips continued in this humiliating fashion year after year, until well after Al Gore Jr. was born in 1948. He said in a recent interview that he thought he had some early memory of those incidents, but added that perhaps he merely remembered being told the stories so many times. “That was a lesson in injustice that was driven home,” he said. “And it was reinforced by frequent commentary from my parents.”

Racial injustice was a common theme in the conversations of Pauline Gore, who friends say was the one who fed the family’s convictions…

Bill Turque, another biographer of Gore:

He [Al Gore’s father] hadn’t lacked for vivid personal encounters with segregation. On the family’s car trips between Tennessee and Washington, the Gores were routinely denied accommodations because they traveled with Nancy and Al’s black nanny, Ocie Bell. Gore eventually found a hotel owner near the trip’s halfway point willing to put them up if they arrived after dark. And he clearly signaled his belief that the South needed to change; in 1956 he refused to sign Strom Thurmond’s so-called Southern Manifesto…“Hell, no,” Gore said, loud enough for supporters in the press gallery to hear when Thurmond presented him the document on the Senate floor.

No biographer of Gore or Gore's father relates any story that the Gore's intentionally left anyone in a sweltering car. In fact, they did everything they could to alleviate the situation. There's no doubt that Payne, Hunt and others were victims of racism, but it was institutionalized, the kind that Gore and Clinton fought against when they were able to and the kind Trent Lott apparently embraces.

Fourth, even though it's not in the Phi story, a lot of defense (or, more accurately, deflection) of Lott has centered around the Gore, Sr. vote on the 1964 Civil Rights bill. Again, from the bio by Maraniss:

[Gore and his father] had several arguments in 1964, when Gore Sr. opposed that year’s federal civil rights act, disappointing his son, and after that vote, which the senator called “the biggest mistake” of his career, he listened more attentively to young Al’s advice. Six years of bold outspokenness made Gore Sr. a folk hero among liberals and antiwar activists, but also a marked man back home.

From a bio by Bob Zelnick:

The ringleader behind the [Southern Manifesto] was Senator Strom Thurmond…[Gore’s father] examined the manifesto and concluded it was, as he would recall years later, “the most spurious, insane, insulting document of a political nature claiming to be legally founded that I had ever read.” Not content with Gore’s private refusal, Thurmond sought to embarrass him on the Senate floor, alerting the press corps that he planned to approach Gore during the afternoon of March 11, 1956. With the press gallery bulging with witnesses, Thurmond stepped toward Gore on the floor, handed him the document, and said, “Albert, would you care to sign our Declaration of Principles?”
“Hell no,” said Gore, returning it to Thurmond.

The actions of Gore, [Sen. Estes] Kefauver, and, at the state level, [Gov. Frank] Clement, and their courage and decency on the civil rights issue, would be more a source of political trouble than benefit in Tennessee, though none of the three ever lost an election because of his position, at least until Gore’s defeat in his 1970 campaign. Each reelection would be challenged and each man would be accused of being “out of touch” with sentiment in the state, or worse yet, a traitor to his region, his heritage, and his people. None of the three ever backed down. None ever engaged in racial demagoguery. None would ever require sympathetic chroniclers to explain that his conduct had to be judged in the context of his time and its political exigencies. Their courage would inspire later generations of southerners who sought to purge the region of its terrible racial heritage.