Posted on 02/10/2005 2:38:00 PM PST by Pharmboy
WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate Democrats demanded Thursday that President Bush order a halt to personal attacks on the party's leader, Sen. Harry Reid, and expressed regret they had failed to mount a stronger defense for his defeated predecessor. "This is a new Democratic party," Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said at a news conference called to release a letter telling Bush to muzzle his "political operatives."
"...It says to the president, 'you will not intimidate us'," added Schumer, who likened the attacks on Reid to political knee-cappings.
The letter itself was written in milder terms. "We urge you to keep your word about being a uniter and publicly halt these counter-productive attacks so that we are able to work together in a bipartisan manner and debate issues on the merits," it says.
Bush and the White House have denied responsibility for the attacks.
But Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, ridiculed that assertion, as Reid did earlier in the week.
"This is the Abu Ghraib defense, that a few renegade soldiers are responsible for their own behavior and the commanders are not accountable," said Durbin, second in the leadership behind Reid. His remarks were a reference to claims by military officials that a few low-ranking enlisted personnel were responsible for the shocking conditions at a U.S.-run prison in Iraq.
The letter to Bush was signed by all the Senate's Democrats except Reid, as well as Sen. James Jeffords, an independent from Vermont.
Reid was named to succeed the defeated Tom Daschle as party leader in December and quickly was attacked as an obstructionist by both the Republican National Committee and National Republican Senatorial Committee.
The RNC distributed a 13-page compilation of criticisms, dissecting Reid's voting record and accusing him of obstructing Bush's agenda over the years. One portion of the document notes that the Nevada lawmaker lives in a costly condominium when he is in Washington - a point that Democrats said has no bearing on policy disputes with the White House.
The attacks are reminiscent of the treatment Daschle received for many months while he was Senate Democratic leader. He lost a re-election campaign in South Dakota last fall, and although Durbin said he and others had defended Daschle from GOP criticism, "we should have done more."
Reid, who did not attend the news conference, said twice this week that Bush could not credibly claim he wasn't behind attacks that were circulated by a party apparatus under his control.
Ironically, Reid and his wife were dinner guests at the White House on Monday night. The senator said Bush had told him he was not behind the attacks.
In addition to sending the letter to Bush, Democrats sought to use the issue as a party-building tool for the 2006 elections.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, chaired by Schumer, sought signatures for an online petition asking Bush to renounce the attacks.
its not an sicilian reference, its an irish one.
the ira used to shoot people in the kneecap and cripple them for life.
There was an Irish mob in America... whether it still exists I don't know. I find the number of Americans of Irish descent who support the IRA to be surprising though.
And Durbin's statement is so priceless, to wit:
The attacks are reminiscent of the treatment Daschle received for many months while he was Senate Democratic leader. He lost a re-election campaign in South Dakota last fall, and although Durbin said he and others had defended Daschle from GOP criticism, "we should have done more."
I wish they had all gone to South Dakota to campain for Daschle and Thune would've romped to a 20 point win like Bush did, eh?
What a titty baby Reid is.
besides all of this......he looks like orville redenbacher!
"They're acting like a bunch of whiny babies. These pansies need to get out of politics."
The deflated Democrats believe that asserting themselves like flappin' ego-bloated brats is still a winning strategy!
And I just read somewhere that the Dem leadership threatens their Dem members with some unnamed retribution IF their cooperate with Republican Soc Sec reforms. To Democrats "unity" means obstruction. The leftist tenet is "perverse opposition" and no one can ignore the blatant perversity of disloyal opposition of the(leftists/liberals)Democrats.
I'd be satisfied when he is jailed for the death of Mary Jo K.
marker
and if i were her, i'd go to that plastic surgeon and demand a REFUND.
she looks like boris karloff in drag.
Sad to say, we have a percentage of wingnuts also.
where i used to live the irish mob tried to move in on the sicilians.
until mr. licavoli had danny green blow up in his new buick in his dentist's parking lot.
yeah i knew there was an irish mob. how do you think the kennedys made their money....papa joe's bootlegging and rumrunning during prohibition.
Joe Kennedy was as mobbed up as any Gotti over here in NY. I'll not speculate about JFK because I can't find my tinfoil hat :o)
Reid's M-O is hilarious. He busted himself. Did he think no one was writing the stuff down?
I'm not sure it'll work as well on Chucky Shumer. Unless Rudy Giuliani somehow waits around till 2010 and decides to run against him, he absolutely cannot be beaten, and he won't be pressured by his state.
Unlike Reid, who won in 98 by 428 votes, and only coasted this time because we couldn't get a strong challenger, and who lives in a state Bush carried.
I do think sending out pieces like this on Kent Conrad, Bill Nelson, and Ben Nelson would be good ideas though.
No question...they have been wounded. By the TRUTH.
"Thin skinned bastard Democrats. It is astonishing they kick up this gorilla dust after all of the ugliness they directed at President Bush. Called him liar, killer,idiot, and just about everything else under the sun."
Outrageous hypocrites! Are the Democrats so deluded they do not see what they reveal about themselves?
AND, the MEDIA aids and abets the Dem's inanity and insanity!
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