Is that a bottle in your vagina, Rep. Pete Stark?
…because, good Sir, you are the star of your own dirty shame today.
I guess if you’re going to hang yourself, your own spine is as good a noose as any. Slithering up to the podium like a worm, apologizing for:
1) Speaking your mind, even if in an incendiary manner
2) Calling it like you see it
3) Daring to bring up the novel idea that, if there’s some kind of magic endless supply of cash to wage endless war and feed pork to defense contractors, as thousands of innocents perish, perhaps there’s a tiny bit left over to provide a safety net for kids of the growing ranks of poor and house-poor alike here in our own back yard.
For those that don’t recall:
This is the one worth remembering.
Also see: ‘Fuck Apologies’, courtesy of Shakesville’s Wolfrum.
Filed under: 1st Amendment, Bush administration, Congress, House of Representatives, Iraq, free speech, pete stark, politics, rich/poor gap
Like you, I’m very concerned about the issue of universal healthcare. Like you (I think), I feel the war in Iraq is among the dumbest blunders in US history. I am utterly, thoroughly, completely frustrated with the way the US is overspending, and not least because overspending is the way most major world powers have fallen in the past.
Having said all that, I really don’t like the use of the word “vagina” as some sort of proxy for “spineless.” I know many women, and I find that they are no more spineless, and no less courageous, than men.
As for Stark, while I sympathize with his frustration, I also find that I must condemn what he said. If I condemn that sort of over-the-top, inflammatory speech in Republicans, then how can I support it in Democrats without being a hypocrite? And believe me, I DO condemn it in Republicans, on talk radio, and anywhere else I hear it.
It’s destructive, and it’s turning the US into a demogoguery. I greatly fear that the center cannot hold.
JS –
It’s a cry for help, is what it is.
I know what you mean, but is it the same caliber of bashing if it’s rooted in fact, and being conveyed by a man who’s in the thick of all this and could very well be at his wit’s end — if he’s having a Howard Beale moment? The message was there, and he ought to hold himself to the proper standard of conduct, but to put his tail between his legs and offer himself up for slaughter is just reinforcing this wonderful standard of post-election cave-ins and collusion we’ve got going among the Dems.
For example: I offer my apology for how my subject line came across. It was meant as a John Waters reference and none else. (In A Dirty Shame, Tracey Ullman’s character Sylvia Stickles has an exhibitionist moment of sorts involving said water bottle. In retrospect, perhaps it would have been better to title the post “Did you star alongside Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Ruby Wax and Joan Greenwood in the mid-80s British comedy Girls On Top?“
In other words: I apologize for the delivery, but not the message.
Hey, Nick, you left out:
4: Telling the truth.
Hi all, I have a simple question that only requires a yes or no. No foul mouthed bashing will follow, I am just curious, really…
Do you advocate a Socialist/Communist future for America?
TRM:
I would guess that fewer than .0005% of the US population wants such a thing. That would pretty much leave out the people on this board. My answer,of course, is “no.”
Do not be surprised if people are offended by your question. Let me ask one of my own, and it only requires a “yes” or “no.”
Do you advocate a Nazi/Fascist future for America?
Hope you won’t be offended by the question.
After a few seconds of shock, I caught the John Waters reference, Nick: my vagina and I both understand the point you were making, and we’re cool with it. But the apology was nice.
As for Stark and his manner: sometimes the simple truth is the most incendiary speech possible. Sometimes someone has to say it. I’m torn on this one; JS makes a point dear to my heart (upholding standards of public discourse), and yet, and yet… Stark had the guts* to say things no one wanted to hear, and to call his colleagues out on their avoidance tactics, and to put children before oil. Minus the personal remarks about the President, I believe that everything he said was necessary and just.
And here’s my double standard showing: I loved the personal remarks about the President.
*I was going to say “balls,” but stopped in time.
Ann:
I despise GW Bush on many levels. To me, he represents the worst of a society that, in principle, supports meritocracy, but abandons it in practice. I can find nothing in his background that even remotely prepares him for any sort of leadership role, and feel that he has achieved nothing tangible that Mommy and Daddy haven’t given him. And that’s just scratching the surface.
Having said that, ad hominem attacks in the public sector appeal only to the worst in us. The Civil Rights movement of the 60s and Ghandi’s movement in India succeeded by taking the high moral ground. It remains to be seen if the people of the US will allow itself to be continually misled by the most strident voices. The people of Republican Rome did. And look what it got them.
JS:
You’re right, of course. I find the best way to deal with that bit of the worst in myself is to allow it, acknowledge it, then try not to act upon it. That mean-spirited, sniggering voice in my head can’t be allowed to run the show.
I haven’t followed this that closely so others may have made the observation I’m about to. Olbermann played the clips of his initial speech and his apology. In the first instance, he seemed slightly inebriated, especially when contrasted with how sober he looked while contrite in the second instance.
He may have been ashamed that he had spoken before Congress drunk and said something he ordinarily wouldn’t.
Ann:
Oh, I know about that mean-spirited voice in my head. Unfortunately, I indulge it too often. If I hang around this blog too long, it’s sure to come out. And I will regret it.
I DO think there’s a time for stridency … when nothing else will work. But, for now, I believe that stridency merely pushes us farther away from what we want the US to be.
JS:
I haven’t seen you indulge it yet; at least, not here. And oh, how I hope that a significant majority of the American people will tire of verbal brawling and begin to demand something more.
Russ:
Now that you mention it, he does look a little pie-eyed in the first clip, doesn’t he?
Ann:
Oh, just check out Russ’s entry on homeland security. I went a bit over the top on that one ;-).
I guess maybe I am confused then to what the agenda is in the Democartic party. It sure appears to be moving towards a tax, spend, big govt. type entity.
Fascist no
and by Nazi I assume you mean Nationalist? Then yes, but by definition, unless we are Native Indians the term may not apply.. but we should start looking out for USA instead of appeasing every welfare sponge who happens to breach our borders…
TRM (et all) - By your healthcare definition isn’t our police force ’socialist’? Isn’t our fire department ’socialist’? I know their definitely ’socialized’. So if we can all get behind socialized police and socialized fire departments, why would socialized medicine be such a hard pill to swallow?
TRM:
Once a person has admitted to being a Nazi, there isn’t usually much more to talk about. But I just can’t help myself. I must point out that the Nazi Party was the National Socialist Party.
I may have mis-spoken then. My assumption was wrong. I am by no means a racist, nazi, or anything else negative associated with the term. The meaning I placed was only on the word Nationalist.
Regarding firemen and policemen, I would be curious to see how well those operations would do privatized. I’ll bet it would run very effeciently. Thanks for the food for thought, let me digest and I’ll stay in touch…
Stark shouldn’t have apologized. He has nothing to apologize for. Nancy “Impeachment is off the table” Pelosi should be apologizing to Democrats everywhere for letting us all down.
I am sick to death of hearing the fake opposition Dems in Congress moan about not having enough votes to end the war in Iraq. They give lip service to the myth that the only way to end the war is to write a bill saying “the war is now over” and send it to Bush for a prompt veto, then override the veto. They then throw up their hands, saying “Well, as you can see, we don’t have the votes to override any veto, so there’s no way to end the war. Sorry folks.”
This is disingenious and vividly illustrates who the Dems are really serving: the establishment, not their constituents.
Here’s how to end the war: No bill specifically ending the war is even necessary. Remember those supplemental funding bills the Cheney regime has to constantly ask for, to continue funding the Iraq war piecemeal instead of in yearly lump sums attached to the actual defense budget? That’s the achilles’ heel of their war effort. The next time Bush asks for another $80 billion or whatever to keep the Iraq bloodbath going, all the Democrats have to do to end the war is to say: NO. To say “We won’t allocate one more penny for your illegal war”. Last I checked the Dems have a wafer-thin majority in both houses. With no Dems voting for the next spending bill it won’t be passed and thus it won’t make it to Bush’s desk for signing. Bush (and especially his puppetmaster Cheney) may have concentrated an inordinate amount of power in the hands of the executive branch, but even they can’t send spending bills to their own desk. That necessarily has to come from Congress. If it never reaches his desk he can’t sign it, and will have 2 choices: 1.pull the troops out while there is still enough money left in the pipeline so to speak to allow an orderly withdrawl (and anyone who has five or more brain cells knows that the money isn’t going to run out the next day, that’s a non-issue that the right wing tries to use as a scare tactic but it is ridiculously dumbed down and simply not true; they don’t wait until they have $5 left before asking for another supplemental OK?); or 2.don’t pull them out right away, and leave them to wither on the vine in Iraq until the money DOES completely run out and they have to withdraw from Iraq chaotically, burning their supplies and vehicles. Either way the war will end pretty soon if the Dems refuse to vote on supplementals. They don’t have to write a bill saying they are cutting off funding; this is only a fig leaf so they can pretend to be doing something to end the war when all they are doing is purposely spinning their wheels. All they have to do is to NOT VOTE ON SUPPLEMENTALS. Pretty effing simple. The people NOW need to DEMAND in so many words that if the Democrats are a genuine opposition party that they will carry out the will of the people and NOT VOTE on supplementals. If they are a fake opposition party as I feel they are, and are acting not in the people’s interest but playing for the same team as the Republicans, then continue with more of the same hand-wringing and impotent nonbinding resolutions that resolve nothing. Decision time Democrats. Which are you? Genuine? Or fake opposition? I think I already know the answer to that one but why don’t you surprise me?
TRM:
Fair enough. A question. Why would you, or anyone else, want to be a nationalist? A patriot, I can see. All being a patriot means is love of country. But nationalism can be embodied in the phrase, “My country. May she always be right, but my country right or wrong.”
That’s a phrase that might have been carved in the wood of a guard tower at Auschwitz.
Nationalism played a role for good, as it acted to pretty much end monarchies in Western Europe. But it also led to the Napoleonic excesses, the abuses of colonialism, and even Lenin’s revolution in Russia.
Why follow in those footsteps? The idea that one supports one’s nation, and by implication, one’s government, even when that government is dead wrong seems, to me, to be as un-American as can be.
Lev:
Technically, I believe you’re right. Congress can simply refuse to fund the war. Practically, it’s political suicide. A guy like Rove must be absolutely licking his chops at the prospect. If the Dems cut the funding, the next thing we’ll be hearing is about all those soldiers who have been killed because the military couldn’t afford the proper equipment, because the Dems had left them high and dry, without any money.
The presiden’ts bully pulpit is a loaded weapon aimed at the opposition’s head. The nature of television, which is the most influential medium is that the simple messages are the ones that work. Complex ones don’t work well, and are usually relegated to print. US politics, these days, appears to be aimed at maneuvering your opponent into something that can be turned into an attack sound bit.
And it works.
TRM:
Forgot to mention the issue of private fire departments. They used to exist, you know. It turned into kind of a protection racket. You paid up or your house caught on fire. In most large cities, the fire departments became very politically active. In New York, they were part of the Tammany Machine. In New York and other cities, they engaged in gang warfare with other fire departments.
Not a great model.
How about having a private military? Any one with enough money could own a company, brigade, division, corp, or even an entire army that’s beholden only to him.
Oh yeah. The tried that in ancient Rome. Didn’t work out too well for them, I don’t think.
I was glad to hear some real anger. I think I don’t condemn this speech because it was heartfelt. I think much of what we hear from the Republicans in the last 7 years has been much more rhetorical in nature. I say this because the major messages by the Republicans have been carefully coordinated so that you might have the ranking Republican on a committee giving the message that the VP, a Cabinet member and the President then repeat several times throughout the same day.
Why did he apologize? Because he realized his anger over Iraq was distracting others from funding the SCHIP program, which he was sincerely trying to see passed. Democratic leaders wouldn’t allow their lad to continue on that line of angry discourse.
I think your words ring true to me… I make no apologies, however I feel no need to run out and start building ovens for Jews, Blacks etc…
“My country. May she always be right, but my country right or wrong.”