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In Boxer-Rice smackdown, Democrats got the black eye
New York Daily News (via Houston Chronicle) ^ | January 20, 2005 | MICHAEL GOODWIN

Posted on 01/20/2005 6:08:19 AM PST by Dog Gone

Two senators came across as sore losers in hearings

Liar!

Am not!

Liar!

Am not!

Senate confirmation hearings don't get any more raw than the bare-knuckle back-and-forth Tuesday between Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Condoleezza Rice.

Pants on fire!

That would apply to Boxer, who seems to be going through a terminal meltdown. Something is driving her over the edge, and she's determined to take the Democratic Party with her.

A week after she tearfully sided with the wackadoo wing by becoming the only member of the Senate to vote against certifying President Bush's election victory, Boxer crossed the line again. This time, she was dry-eyed as she used the hearing on Rice's nomination to be secretary of state to accuse Rice of lying repeatedly about Saddam Hussein and the Iraq war.

"Your loyalty to the mission ... overwhelmed your respect for the truth," Boxer said during a haranguing 12-minute attack based on statements Rice and Bush have made. Boxer did not ask a single question, being too busy replaying the presidential race.

Rice can take the heat. She calmly rebutted the quotations Boxer trotted out and said forcefully of Saddam, "It was high time we got rid of him, and I'm glad that we're rid of him." She also fired back at Boxer's insults, saying, "I really hope you will refrain from impugning my integrity."

"I'm not," Boxer piped up, denying the thing she was obviously doing.

The smackdown ended only when the spoilsport committee chairman, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said, "Let me intervene" and called for a lunch break. Just when it was getting good.

Actually, I don't have a problem with tough questions about the shifting rationale on Iraq. There is a gap between the initial talk of weapons of mass destruction and the current fixation on a democratic Iraq. It's a gap filled with our blood and treasure.

My problem is that Boxer came off as someone who needs a rest. Just as Sen. Edward Kennedy did in the hearings on Alberto Gonzales to be the next attorney general. Kennedy and Boxer both lectured Bush's nominees in condescending moral terms, with Kennedy saying, "I wouldn't have" engaged in discussions of torture.

I wanted Gonzales to ask Kennedy if he had been to Chappaquiddick lately. And I wouldn't have blamed Rice had she told Boxer to stuff it.

Boxer and Kennedy are living in the past, back when it was OK for limousine liberals to tell the rest of us how to live. And maybe they're going a little nuts with frustration because white-bread Bush was re-elected and he's the one nominating the first Hispanic attorney general and the first black female secretary of state.

Whatever's bugging them, Kennedy and Boxer need to get a grip. They're embarrassing themselves and defining their party as a bunch of sour-grapes, out-of-touch losers. All the talk about Dems moving back to the political center and working with Bush is being demolished every time these two open their potty mouths.

Of course, there is another, even more scary possibility: Maybe Kennedy and Boxer actually speak for the majority of their party.

In that case, Dems are in more trouble than they can ever imagine.

Goodwin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the New York Daily News. Readers may e-mail him at Mgoodwin@edit.nydailynews.com


TOPICS: Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: barbarachihuahua; boxer
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1 posted on 01/20/2005 6:08:20 AM PST by Dog Gone
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To: Dog Gone

It was a battle of wits between Condi and Senator Boxer. Unfortunately the Senator was unarmed!


2 posted on 01/20/2005 6:10:54 AM PST by Rummyfan
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To: Dog Gone

Rice in 2008!!


3 posted on 01/20/2005 6:11:58 AM PST by VNam68
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To: Dog Gone

Boxer is either off her meds, or in desperate need of some. That ignorant crunt is becoming as big an embarrassment to California as Fat Teddy and Traitor Kerry are to Massachusetts.

And so far as the brain-dead Lugar, he needs to be given some plum ambassadorial post just to get his senile ass out of the Senate where he does Republicans little, if any good.

And Lugar can take that other egomaniac UpChuck Hagel, who never saw a TV camera he couldn't take time to mug for, with him.


4 posted on 01/20/2005 6:12:59 AM PST by Mad Mammoth
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To: Rummyfan

The democrats are becoming Baathist.I cheer every time they defend the terrorist and their supporters.


5 posted on 01/20/2005 6:13:53 AM PST by Ron in Acreage (Kerry is (no longer) a threat to national security)
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To: Dog Gone

Stalinist drama queen "Botox Boxer" brought a knife to an intellectual gun fight.


6 posted on 01/20/2005 6:15:02 AM PST by FormerACLUmember
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To: Dog Gone

Pelosi was on FNC morning saying that Rice was not called liar. Democrats can parse the words so closely these days that they have no meaning to them.


7 posted on 01/20/2005 6:15:17 AM PST by pikachu (BE alert -- we need more lerts!)
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To: Dog Gone

One thing's certain: Rice demonstrated she's a tough streetfighter.


8 posted on 01/20/2005 6:15:20 AM PST by Brilliant
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To: SuzanneC

GREAT read!!!


9 posted on 01/20/2005 6:15:41 AM PST by YaYa123 (@Oh What A Wonderful Morning.com.)
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To: Dog Gone
Barbara Boxer is dumb as a brick. Always has been. Articulate but educated way beyond her intelligence.
Always has been; always will be.
A white Cynthia McKinney.

Let's just laugh and move on. She is not worth the newsprint being currently wasted on her...

10 posted on 01/20/2005 6:15:51 AM PST by Publius6961 (The most abundant things in the universe are hydrogen, ignorance and stupidity.)
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To: pikachu

Let Pelosi blabber. She's just tightening the noose.


11 posted on 01/20/2005 6:16:10 AM PST by Brilliant
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To: Mad Mammoth

Boxer keeps up the hatred. She's in a safe senate seat, so she's the hit pimp for now.

The democrats will keep this up. Their political position is keep up the hatred of the jews, I mean the republicans.

They have to make people think that the Jews, I mean the republicans, are stupid and trying to run the nation at the expense of the children and the middle class.


12 posted on 01/20/2005 6:16:39 AM PST by gortklattu (As the preacher in Blazing Saddles said "You're on your own.")
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To: Rummyfan

I think it's high time Boxer be called out on her nasty demeanor. She is nothing short of a witch!


13 posted on 01/20/2005 6:17:14 AM PST by Sunshine Sister
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To: Dog Gone
My problem is that Boxer came off as someone who needs a rest

My problem is that Boxer came off as someone who needs arresting.

14 posted on 01/20/2005 6:17:54 AM PST by miskie
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To: FormerACLUmember
Stalinist drama queen "Botox Boxer"

You mean "Barbara Botoxer?"

15 posted on 01/20/2005 6:18:33 AM PST by r9etb
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To: Dog Gone
"They're embarrassing themselves and defining their party as a bunch of sour-grapes, out-of-touch losers."

There was no doubt about that after the Wellstone funeral. It has just mushroomed since then. I love the fact that they are incapable of rehabilitating themselves. Some were along the line, they perfected this talent for self-inebriation and political hysteria... it is truly comical to see. I have not decided if they are people prone to this and find a home in the Democratic fold or if becoming a Democrat has this affect on people.
16 posted on 01/20/2005 6:19:10 AM PST by SMARTY ("Stay together, pay the soldiers and forget everything else." Lucius Septimus Severus to his sons)
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To: pikachu
Pelosi was on FNC morning saying that Rice was not called liar.

Which only proves that Pelosi is a liar...wonderful representatives the left continues to chose.

17 posted on 01/20/2005 6:21:15 AM PST by highlander_UW (I don't know what my future holds, but I know Who holds my future)
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To: Mad Mammoth
Hager....another .......send him home.
18 posted on 01/20/2005 6:22:21 AM PST by pointsal
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To: Dog Gone
"Whatever's bugging them, Kennedy and Boxer need to get a grip. They're embarrassing themselves ... "

Michael Goodwin's first day on planet earth?

19 posted on 01/20/2005 6:22:23 AM PST by G.Mason (A war mongering, UN hating, military industrial complex loving, Al Qaeda incinerating American.)
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To: Dog Gone
"There is a gap between the initial talk of weapons of mass destruction and the current fixation on a democratic Iraq. It's a gap filled with our blood and treasure."

Is anyone paying attention?

EVERYBODY thought Saddam had WMD, including Boxer and the author. With that and many other causus belli, we rolled up Saddam. It was a good thing.

Retrospectively, the WMD are either missing (still to be located) or were never there. Whoops! Heads should roll at the CIA.

Now what? That's the only question that pertains. Clearly, a majority of the American electorate has forgiven Bush the failures of intelligence that lead to Saddam's overthrow. We're glad Saddam's gone, whatever the argument.

Continuing to question the rationale of the war, as this author does, is just beating a dead horse.

20 posted on 01/20/2005 6:23:46 AM PST by Uncle Miltie (Democrat Obstructionists will be Daschled!)
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