Pete Stark: Raving lunatic/Michelle Malkin rips into foul-mouthed leftist congressman

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Wednesday, July 23, 2003 | Michelle Malkin

[JohnHuang2]

Rep. Fortney "Pete" Stark, D-Calif., is the foul-mouthed poster boy for Liberal Double Standards.

There he was on Capitol Hill last week, sounding more like Eminem than an eminent lawmaker, hurling epithets such as "fruitcake" and "c--ks----r" at Republicans during a mark-up session on pension funds legislation of all things.

Most of the mainstream media coverage of the fracas has focused on the handling of the meeting by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, who is accused by Democrats of summoning Capitol Hill police to the scene in order to prevent the minority from meeting in a committee library to discuss procedural objections.

But while Beltway types squabble about whether Thomas was technically out of order, Stark's blatantly thuggish behavior has once again gotten a pass from the establishment Left.

According to an official committee transcript, Stark physically taunted fellow Ways and Means Committee member Scott McInnis, R-Colo., while Thomas attempted to hold a voice vote on the bill at hand. In response to McInnis' demand that Thomas be quiet while the bill was being read, Stark blurted out: "Oh, you think you are big enough to make me, you little wimp? Come on. Come over here and make me. I dare you.''

Further goading McInnis, a married Republican gentleman, Stark lashed out: "You little fruitcake. You little fruitcake. I said you are a fruitcake." According to Fox News Channel, witnesses say Stark then hurled a 10-letter homophobic insult at Thomas better suited for an anti-gay rap record than the Congressional Record. Stark's press office refused to answer my questions on the record about these remarks.

Homosexual-rights groups, whose fax machines and phone lines would have been on fire had the comments been made by any prominent conservative, shrugged at Stark's remarks. "I think he meant nothing by it," Human Rights Campaign official Winnie Stachelberg told Fox News. In his own defense, Stark claims "fruitcake means inept, crazy, a nut cake to me."

No word on what liberally construed definition Stark cites for "c--ks----r."

And no word of protest from magazine writers at the Advocate, who went ballistic when "antigay" Texas Rangers baseball player John Rocker called a couple of restaurant patrons who were harassing him last summer "fruitcakes."

The silence over Stark is no surprise. Liberals have long looked the other way at Stark's bigoted boorishness over the course of his three decades in public office. In 1995, when he called Rep. Nancy Johnson, R-Conn., a "whore" for the insurance industry and suggested that her knowledge of health care came solely from "pillow talk" with her physician husband, not a single Democrat objected. Not one of the proud feminists on Capitol Hill signed a letter, supported by 35 Republican House members, demanding that Stark apologize.

Nor did the Congressional Black Caucus emit a peep when Stark lambasted former Bush I Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan, an accomplished doctor and medical researcher, as "a disgrace to his race and his profession" because he opposed Stark's socialist health care schemes. "I guess I should feel ashamed because Congressman Stark thinks I am not a 'good Negro,"' Sullivan observed after the 1990 incident. "As a Cabinet member who has spent almost four decades of my life dedicated to healing, ... [I] am unable to express my own views without being subject to race-based criticism by those who are not ready to accept independent thinking by a black man."

Then there was the time Stark attacked former conservative California state welfare director Eloise Anderson in 1999 as a baby-killer, complaining at a public forum that she would "kill children if she had her way" simply because she opposed cradle-to-grave government welfare entitlements. Not a single finger-wagging editorial from the media elite about the need for decorum and decent behavior in public debate appeared in either the California or national op-ed pages.

The lesson couldn't be more stark: Only the self-anointed preachers of tolerance and civility on the Left can have their fruitcake and eat it, too.

[JohnHuang2]

Wednesday, July 22, 2003

Quote of the Day by rintense

[Travis McGee]

'Rats are all venemous liars.

[lelio]

No word on what liberally construed definition Stark cites for "c--ks----r."
corksnoker, the rare game of billiards played with corks?

[Carry_Okie]

"Pete" Stark's given name is, Fortney.

He's quite apparently lost his gold-plated pacifier.
Maybe mommy will get him another.

[earonthief]

"Only the self anointed preachers of tolerance and civility on the left can have their fruitcake and eat it, too"

Problem is, only wineo's and rats want fermented fruitcake.

[jagrmeister]

What we have in America, and increasingly in the world, is a rule by the Media. Don't fool yourself into thinking that you have a voice, you don't. The Media tells the masses what to think, and that shapes elections. Even with a Republican government, we get liberal legislation because doing otherwise would mean political disaster. So long as people consider the media untouchable (and let the media cartel hide behind the 1st amendment), this charade will continue and conservatives will rail against the increasing liberalism of this country without knowing why it's an inexorable trend.

[TheAngryClam]

Then there was the time Stark attacked former conservative California state welfare director Eloise Anderson in 1999 as a baby-killer, complaining at a public forum that she would "kill children if she had her way" simply because she opposed cradle-to-grave government welfare entitlements. Not a single finger-wagging editorial from the media elite about the need for decorum and decent behavior in public debate appeared in either the California or national op-ed pages.

I would have thought that Stark supported abortion...

[onyx]

Stark's been permitted to be a thug for too long a time. His party and their fawning media continue to protect Stark. He must be an awfully powerful man on the hill who's owed many favors.

If you've ever seen him he looks the part of a smarmy punk --- an aging Eddie haskell. I wish the 'GOP gentleman' would have decked him.

In your next novel, please consider naming the vilest villian Pete Stark!

[David Isaac]

Again, one question begs to be answered. How did the left manage to completely take over the media, education (at all levels), and the entertainment industry, while all-powerful big business/big money stood by helplessly?

[RippleFire]

bump

[wasp69]

The incident with JC Watts was left out. I would have loved to have read about Stark receiving emergency surgery to have his severed head removed from his glutial cleft after JC Watts ripped it off and shoved it there.

[Judith Anne]

It seems to me that with the internet, with conservative forums (the premier example of which is FR) the big liberal media no longer has a stranglehold on the flow of information.

With talk radio conservatives and Fox News, with the scandals of the NYT, the beginning of the end of liberal domination of information is at hand.

[Glock22]

Having trouble finding a doctor? Can't get your medical records without piles of red tape? Can't find out how your mom is doing in the hospital without filling out a lot of forms and demonstrating the secret handshake? Having trouble getting your calls returned, while the doc is in the office till 9PM filling out paperwork?

Don't forget to thank Pete Stark. He worked hard to give all that to you.

[Travis McGee]

Ideologically driven leftists love pursuing the battle in academia and the media. Conservatives start businesses, work, raise families and get on with their lives. That's how.

[talleyman]

Man, I bet Jennings, Brokaw & Rather were all over this! </sarcasm>

[Travis McGee]

Yeah, I'm sure!

[votelife]

Rather led with this story the last 2 nights, what are you talking about!!!

[Hank Rearden]

Fortney's just mad 'cause he's stuck with a faggy name.

[HenryLeeII]

"Pete" Stark's given name is, Fortney.

Does this make him "F Pete Stark?"

[Im Your Huckleberry]

He's a venemous, boorish, thug. Just another violent Stalinist who would probably be put in charge of running the American Gulag system, if his party actually had enough to power to implement their ultimate ideological goals.

He's just the type of thuggish brownshirt a future Stalin would love to have as a lieutenant.