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Norquist Buying in Bulk (Norquist to marry Samah Alrayyes)
The Hill ^ | 9/23/2004 | Albert Eisele and Jeff Dufour

Posted on 09/23/2004 9:00:28 AM PDT by mabelkitty

Attention all prospective Republican lobbyists: K Street kingmaker Grover Norquist has announced his wedding date, so you’ll know when to send gifts. Problem is, the location and the gift registry are still up in the air.

Norquist, 47, will exchange vows with 31-year-old Samah Alrayyes of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on Saturday, April 2, 2005, he has revealed, although he told The Hill last week that he promised his bride-to-be the wedding will not turn into a political event.

A source at USAID said Norquist joked that the couple should register at Costco. It makes sense, given his predilection for jumbo-sized food items. (He has been known to use a giant container of Kraft parmesan cheese for a bedside table.)

Norquist confirmed yesterday that the suggestion was made merely in jest, as was his proposition that the wedding itself be held at Costco. “They have seating for about 200, and they serve pizza” at the Pentagon City location, he said. “People could sit down and then do their shopping right there, so they don’t have to worry about it beforehand.”

How did Alrayyes take to his suggestions? “She did not dignify it with any kind of response,” he said.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: grovernorquist; norquist; usaid
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At the bottom of the Naces and Names page....
1 posted on 09/23/2004 9:00:28 AM PDT by mabelkitty
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To: mabelkitty

There is hope for me yet!


2 posted on 09/23/2004 9:05:16 AM PDT by Perdogg
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To: mabelkitty

Pretty big age difference if you ask me.


3 posted on 09/23/2004 9:11:28 AM PDT by connectthedots
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To: mabelkitty; KayEyeDoubleDee
So is ol' Grove gonna go the full nine yards and convert to Islam?

'Cause if he doesn't, his wife's family will be duly-obliged to murder him...

4 posted on 09/23/2004 9:23:21 AM PDT by SlickWillard
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To: mabelkitty; KayEyeDoubleDee
A source at USAID said Norquist joked that the couple should register at Costco... Norquist confirmed yesterday that the suggestion was made merely in jest, as was his proposition that the wedding itself be held at Costco.

PS: I wonder if ol' Grove knows about the political affiliations of that Costco outfit:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/search?m=all;o=time;s=costco
I can't believe he doesn't.
5 posted on 09/23/2004 9:26:10 AM PDT by SlickWillard
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To: SlickWillard

He's already the Wash D.C. version of Scat Stevens, if you ask me.


6 posted on 09/23/2004 9:31:32 AM PDT by fishtank
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To: connectthedots
Pretty big age difference if you ask me.

There is a certain kind of man who just can't deal with a woman who is his professional and intellectual equal. It's much easier to get a woman who is going to always be a step or three behind him. From what I've heard about Grover from mutual acquaintances, he's one of this sort. Nor am I surprised he chose a woman from a culture in which women are taught to be subservient to their men.

7 posted on 09/23/2004 9:44:22 AM PDT by Capriole (DO NOT WRITE IN THIS SPACE. FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY.)
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To: mabelkitty; KayEyeDoubleDee; SlickWillard
'Cause if he doesn't, his wife's family will be duly-obliged to murder him...

Oops - make that: his wife's family will be duly-obliged to murder her...

8 posted on 09/23/2004 9:50:10 AM PDT by SlickWillard
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To: Capriole

When I remarry, it will be to a woman between +/- five years of my age; six on the outside. I think men who seek out much younger women have some emotional issues. Seems to be a lot of that in politics.


9 posted on 09/23/2004 9:51:36 AM PDT by connectthedots
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To: mabelkitty

Will he move to Saudi Arabia or wherever his prospective bride comes from to reside?


10 posted on 09/23/2004 9:54:01 AM PDT by lilylangtree (Veni, Vidi, Vici)
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To: SlickWillard

His bride must have gotten a new job. Last year, she worked at the Islamic Institute, per press releases posted on CAIR's website.


11 posted on 09/23/2004 1:31:10 PM PDT by browardchad
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To: mabelkitty

I wonder if "Sameh" is a Mohammedan.

It wouldn't surprise me, being that Grover is a Jihadist sympathizer.


12 posted on 09/23/2004 1:33:07 PM PDT by Guillermo (OJ is innocent because Mark Fuhrman said the "N" word.)
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To: Capriole

What evidence did you divine from the article that his bride is not a professional woman and his intellectual equal? All we know is that she is 31 - many women of all ages are very smart, and many have sucessful careers.

As for the subservience, you have no idea about what kind of a woman she is. How can you make such a statement with any kind of accuracy and fairness?

In several ways, your post is unfair - you come to several judgments about the lady based only on circumstantial evidence. The truth is, you have no idea what kind of woman she is personally, though you have somehow convinced yourself that you do.

That, as we say on Mulberry Street, is "Whacked!"


13 posted on 09/23/2004 1:38:00 PM PDT by HitmanLV (I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.)
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To: HitmanNY
She may well be extremely intelligent and she may well be a professional woman (in fact, the article explicitly states that she works for an international agency). I'm not questioning her intelligence or competence. My point is that if you have two people of either gender, the one who is sixteen or so years older is going to have more mileage and more life experience than the younger one. That's what the years do to us; that's what it means to be older. Unless he is extremely unsophisticated for his age--which Grover Norquist is decidedly not--he must have more surface maturity and experience than his bride does. Actually, this is what women who marry older men find attractive!--the combination of power, success, money, prestige, and entre to a more sophisticated lifestyle. But it does not necessarily lead to a relationship that will be healthy in the long term, especially as she matures, develops her career, and becomes less impressed with her husband's accomplishments.

I'm unfamiliar with the term "whacked," so to my regret I can't respond to it.

14 posted on 09/23/2004 3:49:13 PM PDT by Capriole (DO NOT WRITE IN THIS SPACE. FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY.)
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To: connectthedots
When I remarry, it will be to a woman between +/- five years of my age; six on the outside. I think men who seek out much younger women have some emotional issues. Seems to be a lot of that in politics.

Observe, ladies and gentlemen: we have here a genuinely mature person!

15 posted on 09/23/2004 3:53:00 PM PDT by Capriole (DO NOT WRITE IN THIS SPACE. FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY.)
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To: Capriole
"It's much easier to get a woman who is going to always be a step or three behind him."

The other view is women who find men of their age to be immature wackos!

16 posted on 09/23/2004 4:02:29 PM PDT by BobS
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To: mabelkitty

He is a paid lobbyist for Islamist causes. Its amazing he has any "conservative" support.


17 posted on 09/23/2004 4:05:01 PM PDT by BnBlFlag (Deo Vindice/Semper Fidelis)
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To: BobS
The other view is women who find men of their age to be immature wackos!

True. This was a problem I had all during my teens and early twenties, and my teenage daughter is having now.

18 posted on 09/23/2004 4:19:30 PM PDT by Capriole (DO NOT WRITE IN THIS SPACE. FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY.)
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To: Capriole
There is still ANOTHER view that older women like immature wackos:)

If we put it all together, older men will find younger women and older women will find younger men. It balances the extremes that are out there. At least on paper it makes sense:):)

19 posted on 09/23/2004 4:35:59 PM PDT by BobS
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To: Capriole

You explicitly did question her competence and intelligence when you were speaking of men like Norquist, saying "There is a certain kind of man who just can't deal with a woman who is his professional and intellectual equal."

You wrote that, I didn't. If that doesn't question her intelligence and profession, English must be your second or third langauge. It explicitly does question it.

And in any case, there is no reason to characterize a man with a younger bride, in itself, as someone who "just can't deal with a woman who is his professional and intellectual equal." It's an unknown quantity from where we stand and to characterize it that way in speculative and unfair, couching it in a frame of fear with no evidence to back it up.

I agree with you that a 15 year spread is wide, but not that unusual. I am 36 and sucessful, and exclusively date women age 23-27 or so - old enough to be mature and young enough to be appealing to me.

Part of that has to do with emotional baggage - that is, I find women past 30 who are single (either never married or divorced) to have much more baggage that their younger counterparts. Part of this also has to do with freshness of demeanor and looks. I find youthful women more appealing.

"More mileage and more life experience" is how you put it. I like low mileage, and I think lots of men and women do. To me, high milage is 'baggage.' I don't mind dealing with the baggage I helped create, but I do find dealing with the baggage of numerous other jerks in the past a bore and not worth the trouble, since I can date another class of woman and avoid a decade of baggage that way. That's purely rational, nothing controversial about that.

While relative youth does not guarantee minimal baggage, as a general threshold matter it works fairly well. To extrapolate from what you said, a 25 year old woman probably has less mileage than a 35 year old woman. A 25 year old man probably has less mileage than a 35 year old man. Upon confirmation of that, a person can find that uambiguously (and uncontrovesially) appealing.

Divining much more from a difference in ages like this (31 and 46) isn't very fair. At 31 she should have her act together - there's no reason to suspect, as you explicitly did (though you denied it) that she isn't his professional and intellectual equal.

She isn't a 19 year old girl he picked up at some college, after all - if she was it would make your observations probably more meaningful, but still uncertain.

Whacked is colloqual truncation of 'whacked out.' If you don't know that (and don't know what that means), you're probably not nearly as worldly as a guy like Norquist is. I suppose that would make you his intellectual unequal (and mine for that matter) ;-)

Just joshing with you! ('Joshing' means kidding around, by the way).

In any case, all that I conclude from the fact that he married a woman 15 years younger is that they met, find each other appealing, bonded in some way, and decided to commit to each other. Projecting anything more - positive or negative - from what was offered in the article is unfair.


20 posted on 09/23/2004 4:51:19 PM PDT by HitmanLV (I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.)
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