Daily Dolt
Teh Stupid
It burns
It’s a bit weird given this and thousands of other examples.
Except for a momentary defection to independent candidate Ross Perot in 1992, Luntz has been a Republican operative who has counseled Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani and Trent Lott. But he often has worked for the media and made comments too harsh for the ears of reclusive Republicans. He has clashed frequently with Rep. John A. Boehner, the Republican leader of the House who stifled ethics legislation last year when he was still majority leader.
Boehner, elected chairman of the House Republican Conference when the party took control in 1995, tried then to keep Luntz from addressing closed-door meetings but was overruled by Speaker Gingrich. When Luntz warned publicly in October 2005 of rejection by voters in 2006, he was forced to deliver an abject apology before he could speak at a retreat of House Republicans held at the Library of Congress. After seven straight years on the program, Luntz was kept off last week’s 2007 session at Cambridge, Md., by Boehner.
More hysterical stupid:
Again, if House Speaker Newt Gingrich had done this to President Bill Clinton, the New York Times would still be covering it. No such coverage is likely in this case, because Speaker Pelosi is a Democrat.
FLASHBACK: Hastert Traveled Abroad, Told Foreign Leaders Not To Listen To Clinton
President Bush yesterday said Speaker Pelosi’s bipartisan delegation to Syria sends “mixed signals,” implying that Pelosi overstepped her bounds by merely visiting Syria.
Bush’s supporters have been repeating the argument:
Former ambassador John Bolton: “I would simply hope that people would understand that, under the Constitution, the president conducts foreign policy, not the speaker of the House.”
Former Gov. Mitt Romney: “It has long been the established principle of this country that the president of the United States leads our foreign policy. And if you don’t like the president, then you change him. But you don’t have the two parties each conducting foreign policy in the way they think it ought to be conducted.”
Speaker Pelosi has done nothing to suggest that she intended to speak on behalf of President Bush or the U.S. Government. But her predecessors haven’t been so respectful.
In 1997, Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) led a delegation to Colombia at a time when U.S. officials were trying to attach human rights conditions to U.S. security assistance programs. Hastert specifically encouraged Colombian military officials to “bypass” President Clinton and “communicate directly with Congress.”
…a congressional delegation led by Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) which met with Colombian military officials, promising to “remove conditions on assistance” and complaining about “leftist-dominated” U.S. congresses of years past that “used human rights as an excuse to aid the left in other countries.” Hastert said he would to correct this situation and expedite aid to countries allied in the war on drugs and also encouraged Colombian military officials to “bypass the U.S. executive branch and communicate directly with Congress.”
Subsequently, U.S. Ambassador to Colombia Myles Frechette sent a cable complaining that Hastert’s actions had undermined his leverage with the Colombian military leadership.
In other instances, Hastert actually guided congressional staff to unilaterally reach deals with Colombian officials:
House Foreign Affairs Committee staff, at the direction of the Hastert group, would fly to Colombia, meet with the nation’s anti-narcotics police and negotiate the levels and terms of assistance, the scope of the program and the kinds of equipment that would be needed. Rarely were the U.S. diplomatic personnel in our embassy in Bogata consulted about the “U.S.” position in these negotiations, and in a number of instances they were excluded from or not even made aware of the meetings.
If the right is looking for members of Congress clearly infringing on the president’s constitutional prerogatives, they should look at Hastert, not Pelosi.
April 10th, 2007 at
“Could we get a better class of morons please?”
Why?
It’s not like you beat them at the polls regularly.
I mean come on, if we were any better, no Democrats would be able to get elected in this country outside the inner-city…you know like Chicago. As it is they must ‘lie’ (the Blue dogs) to have half a chance. Or like ‘independant voting’ claire…95% with Reid and ol’ Teddy.
April 10th, 2007 at
So you are proud that the party lies without conscience? Okay.
April 11th, 2007 at
tsquare,
you may want to get out a little. Hubris and a healthy dose of stupidity has put a real crimp into your party’s power and has the president celebrating a “bump” to 38% in the polls. 38%. Huzzah!
What’s more, let’s talk about “lying.” The current leader in the GOP presidential polls is one former mayor of NYC. He of the ever-evolving social positions. The money leader is Romney. He of the ever-evolving social positions and his “lifetime of hunting.”
If you fail to see that politicians of all stripes embellish this, exaggerate that and alter their positions about the other thing, then you are clearly part of the lesser class of morons.
In the end, we probably have to figure out who does a crappy job, such as denying science, embarrassing themselves by injecting the congress into a private family member to pander, lying about a war that has left more than 3,000 Americans dead, giving away the store to PHRMA and energy industries, selling legislation to lobbyists, and of course, back to topic, conveniently forgetting their own sins while brazenly lying in a continuing desperate attempt to ooze back into power.
You have no leg to stand on here.
April 11th, 2007 at
Which is good, as I am sitting, and do so (sit) much of the time I look at this, and other, bloggs.
That said, you seem the be trying to cover for your leader…the highest ranking Democrat in the nation, by comparing her to Dennis Hastert, then (1997) a respected, though not in power ‘back bencher’ for the GOP. Hastert was not to become speaker for another 2 years.
Are you then saying the Queen Nancy is no more important than Hastert was before he was Speaker? Okay…
There are 435 members of the US House and at any given time one (or more) of them is saying/doing something stupid.
Queen Nancy is the nominal leader of your party. This harkens back to the 2004 ‘meetings’ John Kerry claimed to have with all those foreign leaders leading up to the election.
And while we are here, let’s face facts: if Queen Nancy had done what she did, and SUCCEEDED, well then you and I wouldn’t be having this little talk…SUCCESS, and your Queen would have gotten a parade when she got back…but face it she got sucked in and played, by at least one side and maybe by both.
You guys claim that we, the GOP are a bunch of idiots… that’s good for you…because if not you wouldn’t have no more than a dozen House members in your party. Again look at the results…with “everyone” “hating” Bush, the war, and with the GOP nothing more than ‘fools’ all you got in 2006, what a majority of 15 seats in the House and one, and a sick in the hospital one in the Senate.
What happens when the Democrats have to compromise on the war spending bill? What happens if the war turns, even a little, and the GOP actually has someone running that isn’t Bush, the economy stays well, and Queen Nancy can’t keep her majority together to pass spit?
Good luck there guys…
April 11th, 2007 at
====ox Calls Out Gingrich Hypocrisy on Pelosi Trip to Syria
Today on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace asked former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) about his views on the Pelosi-led delegation to Syria. Gingrich criticized Pelosi, saying, “I think it’s very important not to have two foreign policies, and I think it’s very dangerous for America to do what Speaker Pelosi did.”
Wallace confronted Gingrich with public comments he made as Speaker that clashed with Clinton administration policy before and during his travels abroad to China and Israel in the 1990’s. (Glenn Greenwald first documented those statements HERE.) Gingrich said at the time:
We will defend Taiwan, period. [3/31/97]
I think it’s wrong for the American Secretary of State to become the agent for the Palestinians [3/12/98]
Gingrich responded to the Taiwan comment stating, “What I said in China was U.S. policy.” But Wallace quickly refuted him: “Not according to the Clinton administration.” Gingrich then attempted to defend his statements criticizing Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and said, “I think at the time she was taking steps that were very, very pro-Palestinian.”
There are many examples of this sort of thing. It’s utter hypocrisy to be screaming at Pelosi for talking to a foreign government–something that is clearly expected in the Constitution if one understands the foreign policy powers ascribed to the dominant legislative branch and not the fantasyland unitary executive theory Dick Cheney and friends have made up. Nevermind that in the initial example, Gingrich set up the Hastert group to specifically undermine the Clinton administrations dealing with terrorists.
===what a majority of 15 seats in the House
That would be 31 seats–a larger majority than the Republicans had at anytime between 1995 and 2007.
Fantasyland may be fun, but it’s silly.
April 11th, 2007 at
You may not have a lock on reality, but you have an iron-clad grip on hypocisy. But hey, megadittoes on echoing the talking points.