Posted on 09/27/2006 11:30:48 AM PDT by truthandlife
Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey has launched an attack on Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, saying Dobson and his "band of thugs” are "nasty bullies” and accusing the Republicans of pandering to the Christian right.
In an interview with Ryan Sager, author of the book "The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians, and the Battle to Control the Republican Party,” Armey said the GOP was "adrift and rudderless” in its commitment to small government.
When pressed by Sager about what he feels is wrong with today’s Republican Congress, Armey – who became majority leader when the GOP took control of Congress in 1994 and retired in 2003 – said: "The criteria of choice in just about every behavior you see in Congress today is politics. Where in the hell did this Terri Schiavo thing come from? There’s not a conservative, Constitution-loving, separation-of-powers guy alive in the world that could have wanted that bill on the floor.
"That was pure, blatant pandering to James Dobson. That’s all it was. It was silly, stupid, and irresponsible. Nobody serious about the Constitution would do that. But the question was will this energize our Christian conservative base for the next election.”
Sager asked why it seems that Christian conservatives are more powerful now than in the 1990s. Armey replied: "To a large extent because Dobson and his gang of thugs are real nasty bullies. I pray devoutly every day, but being a Christian is no excuse for being stupid. There’s a high demagoguery coefficient to issues like prayer in schools. Demagoguery doesn’t work unless it’s dumb . . . These issues are easy for the intellectually lazy and can appeal to a large demographic.”
Armey, who was first elected as a Congressman from Texas in 1984, toned down his remarks – but only slightly – in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal on Sept. 23. He again brought up Dobson: "The national representatives of the social conservative movement used to be sophisticated and tolerant. Today, they are sophomoric and angry. It's an embarrassing spectacle seeing leaders bullied around by the likes of James Dobson, or watching the Christian Coalition team up with MoveOn.org in support of bigger government.”
Armey – now chairman of FreedomWorks, a national grassroots advocacy organization – did not reserve his criticism for the GOP, going on to write: "Perhaps the only thing more embarrassing than being a loyal Republican in this election season is being a loyal Democrat. Although the party has offered no proposal to fix Social Security, the aspiring House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the Senate majority leader hopeful, Harry Reid, held yet another press conference recently denouncing the secret Republican plan to "privatize" the failing entitlement.
"While Democrat pollsters are no doubt telling their candidates that the P-word will effectively scare seniors and other swing constituencies to the polls, this strategy has consistently failed in past election cycles.”
Actually, he is.
You need not speculate on what would happen. The experiment has been tried a few times, with the following results:
1992: 106,152 votes / 5th place
1996: 184,820 votes / 5th place
2000: 98,022 votes / 6th place
2004: 144,498 votes / 5th place
Where is that in the Constitution?
True, but where does the Constitution give Congress the authority to resolve these issues?
That simply isn't true. Some (not all) of them have an agenda of government social engineering designed to compel their preferred behaviors.
"The national representatives of the social conservative movement used to be sophisticated and tolerant."
Excuse my language, but WTF is that supposed to mean, Dick?
Dick Armey can do this with impunity knowing that Dr. Dobson is a gentleman and would never respond in kind.
Dick Armey... you are a coward, a sell-out and a turncoat. But, I still pray that you will receive the Lord and the eternal life that is His promise.
"ACU Lifetime Score = 97"
You are out of your mind.
You have the wrong Dick. Armey never cheated.
In both cases, the shift is driven by repulsion against a philosophy that uncomfortably reminds people of the enemy's ideology.
There are only a few instances of this. Armey is right about Schiavo. That did not belong in congress. Florida made its decision, a bad decision, but that was Florida's mistake to make.
The principal position of evangelicals about abortion is that the federal gvt (by way of the federal courts) should be out of the abortion issue. And I know a lot of political evangelicals. That's a small gvt constitutional position.
On homosexual marriage, the marriage amendment is proposed because the federal constitution, thru the full faith and credit clause, will eventually require mississippi to recognize massasachussets homosexual marriages. That is a principled response to a glitch in the constitutional structure that turns out to be deeply inconsistent with any notion of federalism.
TJ, there are a few social conservatives who are not small government conservatives. But I would wager that, if you took the moderate R's and counted the percentage of them that would expand federal power and compared that with the percentage of social conservatives that would expand federal power, you would find at least double the percentage amongst the moderates.
You are fishing in the wrong tank for small government conservatives. The real problem is, if you line up everyone who is in favor of smaller government, it's way less than 50% of the population--at most 35-40%. So real conservatives are always a minority. But you publically blame the inevitable results of that minority position on evangelicals. And, overwhelmingly, the accusation is just wrong.
Not wise politics. Not wise at all.
I can see that that assumption makes you chortle with glee.
Your premise falls apart in light of the fact that the Christians never left the GOP during any of those elections.
I'd think twice about criticizing with a name like Tricky Dicky.
Chortle with Glee? No. Saddened that Blackwell got too far in bed with the Christian Right and now he's paying a price. I honestly think he would stand a decent chance if people weren't afraid of his bedmates. But not with the Christian Right baggage.
That is not what an retired FBI agent I know that worked in DC told me.
LLS
I don't know about Dobson in specific, but I do know one of his state guys blew a chance to get some pro-Christian legislation passed because he was heavy handed in the state of Ohio. It was the guy who got the Marriage Protection amendment (Phil Burress) on the ballot. He pressed too hard on some State Senators who are friendly to his causes and torqued them off. They let some one of his pet bills die. It's only logical that if the Lt in Dobson's army didn't get scorched by being heavy handed, then Dobson must appreciate the tactics.
"That is not what an retired FBI agent I know that worked in DC told me. "
Oh, for pete's sake. Third hand hear-say is not evidence of anything. If you have information, let's hear it. Name your agent. Otherwise, it's just more nonsense.
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