Brown Rips Into Bush Administration Official

Miami Herald.com ^ | 2/25/04 | Ken Thomas/AP

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

MIAMI - U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown verbally attacked a top Bush administration official during a briefing on the Haiti crisis Wednesday, calling the President's policy on the beleaguered nation "racist" and his representatives "a bunch of white men."

Her outburst was directed at Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega during a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill. Noriega, a Mexican-American, is the State Department's top official for Latin America.

"I think it was an emotional response of her frustration with the administration," said David Simon, a spokesman for the Jacksonville Democrat. He noted that Brown, who is black, is "very passionate about Haiti."

Brown sat directly across the table from Noriega and yelled into a microphone. Her comments sent a hush over the hourlong meeting, which was attended by about 30 people, including several members of Congress and Bush administration officials.

Noriega later told Brown: "As a Mexican-American, I deeply resent being called a racist and branded a white man," according to three participants.

Brown then told him "you all look alike to me," the participants said.

During the meeting, Brown criticized the administration's response to the escalating violence in Haiti, where rebels opposing President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's government have seized control of large parts of the country.

After her comments about white men, Noriega said he would "relay that to (Secretary of State) Colin Powell and (national security adviser) Condoleezza Rice the next time I run into them," participants said. Powell and Rice are black.

A State department spokesman did not return a phone message.

U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach, who organized the meeting, called the comments "disappointing."

"To sit there and browbeat this man who is a Mexican-American and call him names, it was inappropriate," Foley said.

Brown has criticized the detention of Haitian migrants fleeing their country and the freezing of millions of dollars in aid over flawed 2000 legislative elections in the impoverished Caribbean nation. In a statement Wednesday, she made parallels to the disputed 2000 election in Florida.

"It simply mystifies me how President Bush, a president who was selected by the Supreme Court under more than questionable circumstances (in my district alone 27,000 votes were thrown out), is telling another country that their elections were not fair and that they are therefore undeserving of aid or international recognition," Brown said.

Participants at the meeting included eight members of Florida's congressional delegation, U.S. Reps. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., and Maxine Waters, D-Calif.; John Maisto, U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States, and Adolfo Franco, an assistant administrator with the U.S. Agency for International Development.

[tutstar]

You're right on the money. In my previous post note that the Jacksonville paper buried on the state news page...............bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

No reporters downtown.

Jim King's doings have not hit here yet, though I've emailed them numerous times, and emailed and called the news stations as well. I am not giving up!! King runs around Fl making all kinds of crass remarks which never end up in the paper here.

Hogwash! Time for change!

[tutstar]

and mess up my monitor........print it out and do what you want with it, the monitor will appreciate it.....LOL

[tutstar]

http://www.duval.fl.us.landata.com/SearchDisclaimer.asp

Duval County Public Record search, very interesting.....

[Thane_Banquo]

Brown is a first class racial warlordess. The fact that someone like her could ever get elected does not speak well for the state of our republic.

[Thane_Banquo]

I don't know that we can generalize to all black Americans. I have a feeling the majority of liberals (black, white, or otherwise) identify more closely with Haitians than with their fellow Americans, since liberals really don't like America.

[MadMoo]

Obiously she's a racist p*g in need a good 'witch slap' to bring her to her senses. Does she have any friends (or even enemies) to administer to her?

[Carry_Okie]

"To sit there and browbeat this man who is a Mexican-American and call him names, it was inappropriate," Foley said.

Oh, and if he'd been WHITE Mr. Foley, I suppose that would have been OK?

What a woosie.

[Mo1]

U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach, who organized the meeting, called the comments "disappointing."

Disappointing?? ..... Yes

Surprising??? .... No

[backhoe]

-Haiti, descending into chaos again--

[Stultis]

Brown is a racist.

It's probably worse than that. Many (most?) in the "Congressional Black Caucus" are RED first and black second. I suspect this is less about race than about outrage that Bush is not rushing to secure the dictatorship of the Clinton-installed Marxist Aristede.

[ought-six]

Ah yes, the tolerance of the Left.

[dsc]

"Obiously she's a racist p*g in need a good 'witch slap' to bring her to her senses."

Chico Marx delivered the best response: "He, she thinks I look alike."

[dsc]

"Clinton-installed Marxist Aristede"

I'll be glad to see Aristide gone, but who will replace him? Nobody seems to be talking about the leanings of the opposition.

I did notice that they seem to be using M-16s instead of AK-47s, which *might* be a good sign.

[samtheman]

How to explain the amazing transmutation of Cold War and Gulf War doves into Haiti and Balkan hawks? The crucial and obvious difference is this: Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo were humanitarian ventures--fights for right and good, devoid of raw national interest. And only humanitarian interventionism--disinterested interventionism devoid of national interest--is morally pristine enough to justify the use of force. The history of the 1990s refutes the lazy notion that liberals have an aversion to the use of force. They do not. They have an aversion to using force for reasons of pure national interest.

---Democratic Realism

[ought-six]

"Apparently black Americans identify more closely with black Haitians than their fellow white Americans. It's all about race, all the time. Relentlessly."

SOME black Americans do. Just like SOME black Americans are throwing a hissy fit because Jesus in the Mel Gibson movie was not played by a black. A racist is a racist is a racist; it's just amusing that some of the biggest racists on the planet are the first to cry racism at every opportunity. Ms. Brown is one of them.

[leprechaun9]

Brown then told him "you all look alike to me,"

What can you expect from a person that is so blinded with HATRED that she cannot accept the consequences of her "FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT'S" solution to Haiti?

[Lunatic Fringe]

Hmm... it would be racist to point out that a group of people were "a bunch of black men."

So, who is the racist Ms. Brown?

[StarFan]

By the staff of Capitol Hill Blue August 16, 1999

In addition, the House ethics committee is investigating Brown over her dealings with an African millionaire who was imprisoned on bribery charges. Two committee investigators went to Miami recently to interview witnesses for that case.

We're told the wheels of justice turns slowly but I question why an investigation conducted in 1999 has yet to be resolved? With the myriad of charges against this racist woman, either her FBI files are more extensive than the Clintons or she has powerful people intimidating the spineless wonders in congress.

[.cnI redruM]

She looks like the model they used to build Gollum for The Lord of The Rings movies.

"Yessss....Bushes are nasssty hobittsessss..."

[Piquaboy]

She is a medical miracle for living so long without a brain.