Posted on 08/21/2003 7:48:15 PM PDT by weegee
Republicans to rip apart Democrats' old offices
By JOHN WILLIAMS
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle Political Writer
Republicans in Harris County have pounded their Democratic opponents time and time again at the ballot box during the past decade.
Sunday, they intend to throw a grand old party to batter the Democrats' former headquarters in Midtown.
Harris County GOP Chairman Jared Woodfill is asking local Republicans to bring sledgehammers and other implements of destruction to help level the building the Democrats vacated three months ago.
"You bring the muscle, we'll bring the refreshments and we will have a party as we tear down the Harris County Democratic Party headquarters," Woodfill said in his invitation to party faithful.
Harris County Democratic Party Chairman Gerry Birnberg was quick with a metaphor. That's what Republicans do, he said, "tearing things down, destroying them."
"They did it to our economy, to our jobs market, to our voting rights, to our democracy, to civility in government, to civil rights, to health care for children, to fair pay for teachers -- they took out their sledgehammers and smashed them to smithereens."
Harris County GOP officials tried to hammer the Democrats with words in a news release on the Dem-olition derby, saying that "the Harris County Democratic Party has been evicted from their party headquarters."
Evict, according to Webster's New World College Dictionary, means "to remove (a tenant) from leased premises by legal procedure, as for failure to pay rent."
Birnberg said the party had a month-to-month lease on the old headquarters on LaBranch until earlier this summer. At that time, the building was sold to a developer who intends to tear it down for a new project. The owner gave the GOP permission to help with the razing.
The Democrats moved into new digs on the North Loop.
"There was no `eviction' any more than Ronald Reagan was `evicted' from the White House when his term was up and he moved to California," Birnberg said. "But truth is not one of the virtues this bunch believes in or embraces."
The Democrats have picked up support from a likely group -- organized labor.
Richard Shaw, secretary-treasurer of the local AFL-CIO, said union members will hold a "peaceful" sidewalk party nearby to watch the GOP "destroy the building and the economy."
I was hoping that he might have publicly apologized for the threats members of his party made. That he would have told them about the relocation of the Republican event (and thus the cancelation of the Democrat counter event).
It's why articles should be posted to FR and not excerpted (lately there has been a lot of unncessary excerpting on FR). If an article is too long but contains good information, it can always be posted as its' own thread.
The article is posted above but if I hadn't we wouldn't have the full text, just the Comical excerpts.
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