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Banned
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by NCB
Dems vote straight party at a higher clip than republicans. So yes, they do follow Dems blindly. Sorry
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It is amusing to watch your spirited, "sheeple like" defense of a "fellow republican", NCB. Would Steele do the same to defend you and your ideology, or is he simply an ambitious politician out to harness the blind, reflexive, political sentiments of his fellow republicans?
Quote:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200611030005
....Blitzer also failed to challenge Steele's assertion that he is "not running away from President Bush" and that he has "never run away from" being a Republican. In a July 25 Washington Post column by Dana Milbank, a candidate speaking "under the condition that he be identified only as a GOP Senate candidate," spoke "critically, if anonymously, about the party he will represent on Election Day." Milbank wrote that the candidate "spoke of his party affiliation as though it were a congenital defect rather than a choice."......
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Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...072400953.html
For One Senate Candidate, the 'R' Is a 'Scarlet Letter'
By Dana Milbank
Tuesday, July 25, 2006; Page A02
....Not that he necessarily wants it. "Well, you know, I don't know," the candidate said when asked if he wanted President Bush to campaign for him. Noting Bush's low standing in his home state, he finally added: "To be honest with you, probably not."
The candidate gave the luncheon briefing to nine reporters from newspapers, magazines and networks under the condition that he be identified only as a GOP Senate candidate. When he was pressed to go on the record, his campaign toyed with the idea but got cold feet. He was anxious enough to air his gripes but cautious enough to avoid a public brawl with the White House.
Still, his willingness to speak so critically, if anonymously, about the party he will represent on Election Day points to a growing sense among Republicans that if they are to retain their majorities in Congress, they may have to throw the president under the train in all but the safest, reddest states.
It's not an ideological matter. Even as he berated the president, the candidate allowed that he opposes a pullout from Iraq, agrees with Bush's veto of human embryonic stem cell research, and supports constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage and flag burning.
"He's the best!" cheered Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) when he stopped in to shake the candidate's hand during the lunch yesterday.
But if such affection is mutual, the candidate did not always show it. "We've lost our way, we've gone to the well and we drank the water, and we shouldn't have," he said of congressional Republicans. "You don't go to Congress to become the party that you've been fighting for 40 years." Lamenting "the spending, the finger-pointing, not getting the bills passed," he counseled: "Just shut up and get something done.".....
....He seemed less agitated by the policy failure than by Bush's unwillingness to admit failure......
......The candidate looked the part of the contender, wearing a monogrammed shirt, his French cuffs sprouting cuff links coordinated with his necktie. ........
<img src="http://www.phillysonline.com/lunch_counter/images/2005/11/02/steele.jpg">
http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro...4932-4054r.htm
<b>[Picture provided for comparison to description....is Steele, the senate candidate described by Dana Milbank?]</b>
.....But he spoke with little caution as he ladled a heaping portion of criticism on his own party.
"In 2001, we were attacked and the president is on the ground, on a mound with his arm around the fireman, symbol of America," he said, between bites of hanger steak and risotto. "In Katrina, the president is at 30,000 feet in an airplane looking down at people dying, living on a bridge. And that disconnect, I think, sums up, for me at least, the frustration that Americans feel."
The response to Katrina was "a monumental failure," he continued. "We became so powerful in our ivory towers, in our gated communities. We forgot that there are poor people." The detachment remained after the storm, he said. "I could see that they weren't getting it, they weren't necessarily clued in. . . . For me, the seminal moment was the [Dubai] port decision."
Of course, picking on Bush for Katrina and the Dubai ports is hardly a daring position, even for a Republican. And in some cases, the candidate hit Bush from the right, such as when he opposed Bush's proposed guest-worker program for immigrants. "Republicans aren't very happy people right now," he argued. "The base is kind of ticked off."
He spoke of his party affiliation as though it were a congenital defect rather than a choice. "It's an impediment. It's a hurdle I have to overcome," he said. "I've got an 'R' here, a scarlet letter."
That left the candidate in a difficult spot. "For me to pretend I'm not a Republican would be a lie," he reasoned. But to run as a proud Republican? "That's going to be tough, it's going to be tough to do," he said. "If this race is about Republicans and Democrats, I lose."
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....and....if you still doubt that Milbank was quoting Steele, there is this:
Quote:
http://www.examiner.com/a-196320~Ste...e_ignored.html
Len Lazarick, The Examiner
<b>Jul 27, 2006</b> 5:00 AM (103 days ago)
Current rank: Not ranked
BALTIMORE - Lt. Gov. Michael Steele insisted on Wednesday that a Washington Post columnist was trying “to stick his finger in my eye and in the eye of the president” when he quoted Steele’s remarks criticizing President Bush and the Republican Party, attributing them to an unnamed Republican Senate candidate.
“It was an off-the-record conversation, as I understood it to be,” Steele said on WBAL radio’s Chip Franklin show. The interview with the conservative radio talk host was the only request for comment Steele granted
Wednesday.....
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Last edited by host; 11-07-2006 at 10:54 AM..
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