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.”
Army plans to run and picks the wrong people to criticize, I'm not a fan of Dobson, but Army has slid down the slope has become a progressive. He has just come out of where he has been hiding, I haven't herd him comment on any issues, I guess silence is golden.
Just because you religious zealots have to be led around my the noise doesnt mean that everyone else has someone else thinking for them.
You had that for much of the country's history when there was a social consensus. Among other gifts the 60s left us with a culture war. Progressives using the Supreme Court to force their mores on the whole country spawned attempts by both sides to use the government to their own ends.
When is your tee time? After cocktails?
I dont even think Army was married.
No surprise. Hannity's 'conservatism' often sounds more like Javits, Percy and Rockefeller than Barry Goldwater, so Giuliani would fit.
Reasonable point of view for anyone unaware of all the details of the T.S. situation.
Unreasonable point of view for an informed person, besides human monsters.
No rant. You said that Armey had been having extra-marital sex. It's up to you to provide the evidence of that, don't you think?
I just unsubscribed from his FreedomWorks.
Judging from your grammar, punctuation, and logic, you must be a public school graduate.
I don't agree with Giuliani either, but Hannity is largely focused on the Most Important Issue of our time (security), and on that front Giuliani is dead on in that. I doubt as a President he would push a liberal agenda with or without a Republican majority in congress. That's just his views.. I'm not enthusiastic about Giuliani, but lets be practical...
Your bigotry is hampering your ability to think.
Either you posted to the wrong person or you have serious reading comprehension problems. I've seen you around here long enough to know that you probably just posted to the wrong person. No problem.
Regards,
LH
Unreasonable point of view for an informed person, besides human monsters.
Personally, I think Michael Schiavo got away with murder and Terri should have been kept on life support. But given that there was insufficient evidence to demonstrate that and that there was no document that Terri Schiavo had signed, giving over the power of attorney to someone else, it was, properly, her husband's decision to make.
If, God forbid, my family were to end up in such a situation, I'd like the decision to be made without having to look over my shoulder and see if Congress is watching. Especially since there's no guarantee it will always be a Republican Congress.
If that makes me a monster, then I'm a monster.
...and elect more of the likes of Chafee and Snowe. Heck, maybe you could even thaw out Nelson Rockerfeller and put him on the ticket.
Terri's husband starved her to death. If he had done that to his german shephard, he'd have been thrown in jail, but because we as a culture worship death and the "right" to kill, he was praised...
Sickening.
Ed
Dick seems to be off his meds....
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