Posted on 12/21/2005 10:23:14 AM PST by AzaleaCity5691
Riley says Moore sought protection for monument Wednesday, December 21, 2005 By BILL BARROW Capital Bureau MONTGOMERY -- During the peak of public protests over removal of the Ten Commandments from the Alabama Judicial Building, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore sent an emissary who asked Gov. Bob Riley to call out Alabama National Guard troops to protect the 5,280-pound rock, according to the governor.
"That's where Roy and I parted ways," Riley told the Mobile Register of his chief opponent in the upcoming 2006 Republican primary for governor.
Former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Terry Butts, who came to see the governor on Moore's behalf and ended up meeting with several administration officials and at least one of Riley's adult children, confirmed that a meeting took place in the Capitol some evening in August 2003.
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Yet Butts characterizes the conversation a different way, saying his only explicit request was for Riley to "hold a press conference and issue an executive order saying that as long as he were governor, the Ten Commandments monument would not be removed from the Alabama Judicial Building."
The two men's statements come six months before the governor's primary showdown with the famed "Ten Commandments judge," and they add new details to the high-profile legal and political bout that resulted in Moore's ouster as chief justice.
(Excerpt) Read more at al.com ...
I find Roy Moore to be a very impressive man. I have heard him speak a couple of times and he is just amazing. I love the guy. I don't care what anybody says about it either.
Stuff like that is why I am glad I don't live in Alabama anymore.
Roy Moore will be the next Governor of the Great State of Alabama. By the way he is denigrated by the media and even by some on FR, you would think that the man had killed someone.
"you would think that the man had killed someone."
He did something much worse - he defended our Christian heritage!
I am glad that you do not live here. Alabama is a great state to live in.
Looks like Old Bob is scared of Roy
Any body got any polling on this?
Bob lost me when he tried that tax increase garbage
Stuff like this is why we, too, are glad you don't live in Alabama anymore.
Supposed Conservatives and Libertarians are always complaining that no one will stand up to the unconstitutional over-reaching of the Federal Government....then when someone does, they complain that he is grandstanding.....
We all ought to be scared of Roy.
He actually wanted to call out the National Guard to protect a rock!
If Alabamans want him for governor, well, you'll have to live with his idiosyncracies.
But this kind of nuttiness will kill him if he has desires for higher office.
Not if I have anything to do with it, because as much as I disagreed with Riley on the whole "Plan for Progress" thing, I do believe that incident resulted in two things.
1. He will never try anything that stupid again.
2. From all outward signs, he only attempted that move because he was convinced the state has no other viable options, in other words, he took a stance he knew would be politically unpopular because he thought it would benefit the state.
Granted, we don't need any more "Plans for Progress" but we do need more men who are willing to put the actual good of something above what's good for them, it's something quite refreshing, especially considering that I grew up in a time in which our politics were decided entirely based on a cult of personality, case in point, I was born the year Wallace was elected and I got married his final year in office as Governor. And to me, it looks as if Moore is using his same political playbook, including the concept of running an entire slate of pro-him candidates in the primary.
As far as I'm concerned, Moore is manipulating the faith of born-again Evangelicals in order to achieve political power, and I personally don't believe that his ambition ends at Montgomery.
Well, then everybody's happy.
I live in Alabama and definitely WON'T be voting for Moore. I can't stand that sleeze.
"During the peak of public protests over removal of the Ten Commandments from the Alabama Judicial Building, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore sent an emissary who asked Gov. Bob Riley to call out Alabama National Guard troops to protect the 5,280-pound rock, according to the governor."
If true, Moore is amazingly stupid.
Alabama-Roy Moore ping.
And you would want the police to come if you were robbed.
You would want the fire department to come if your property was burning.
But Judge Roy couldn't ask for protection of his property from vandalism?
Double standard.
"If true, Moore is amazingly stupid"
No, actually, he's amazingly brilliant.
He wanted to do then what Wallace did in 1963, both men knew it would fail (Wallace actually choreographed the whole "Stand" incident with the Kennedy administration beforehand), but both men knew that they were playing to peoples deepest passions, which a standoff would have certainly done. Moore is out for power, while it is true that he would have lost in court, and the monument would have been removed anyway, he would have made an even bigger national spectacle of himself, could have even moreso played the role of martyr, and basically, would have been able to use the Evangelical vote to take whatever office in the state he wanted.
However, Riley (and I do believe the story, because this is a rumor I had heard before) basically didn't give him what he wanted, and while it is true Roy lost, he lost in a way not as beneficial for him, even with the grandstanding he got in. And this has given his opponents an oppurtunity to attack him on various issues, such as his ties to trial lawyers. It would have greatly helped his political standing had he had the full blown-out standoff.
He was defying a court order that specifically addressed government property. It's not the same thing at all.
God give us men. The time demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and willing hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor; men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue
And dam his treacherous flatteries without winking;
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty and in private thinking.
-- Josiah Gilbert Holland. 1819-1881
I love that. Thanks.
A two-ton rock in a capitol rotunda guarded, around the clock, by state troopers, also needs tanks and planes to keep somebody from hauling it off?
Moore played you saps like a fiddle. God knows what kind of stunts he's going to pull if he becomes governor.
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