[Darnright]

Icarix, since you're from South Dakota, can you give us the rundown on the Middle Eastern South Dakota member of Congress Daschle got his start under?

What ever happened to the guy? We need to be reminded of just where little Tommy got his experience to enter Congress.

[icarix]

Fortunately (or Unfortuantely), I haven't been around that long. I'm only 29 and Daschole's been around as long as I can remember. I can do the research though and post more later if you like.

[rodguy911]

Thune just said the one moment tommie hugged GW was the only bi-partisan moment in his career, or to that effect, dashhole now bringing up reagan and bush 41--I smell desperation here, dashhole has invoked everything that ever happened that was not liberal in his career, running scared.

[lawdude]

That would be Abourezk [sp]. I went to law school with his kid. Kid is every bit as smarmy as Dasshole. Flaming bleeding heart lib with indian causes paramount to reality.

[Agrarian]

Senator James Abouresk. Lebanese -- nominally Christian, I think, not Moslem. He was a McGovern sidekick, and Larry Pressler kicked him soundly out of the Senate. His dad, as I recall, got his start in SD as a trading post guy on Indian reservations in SD -- probably sold a lot of booze and made a lot of money.

Daschle was his staffer, and Abouresk identified him (correctly) as the kind of guy the Dems need to run in SD in order to win, and plugged him into his nationwide fund-raising network. Daschle's campaign in 1978 set a then record for out-of-state money spent by a candidate in South Dakota. See my little vanity for more on that race:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1211768/posts

[Agrarian]

When I went to see if I could find out what I could find out about James Abourezk's subsequent history (he's retired and living in Rapid City -- it appears that a relative -- a son? -- is a medical malpractice personal injury trial attorney there), I found out a couple more interesting things.

The interesting thing that I found out, that I never knew, was that the guy Daschle beat to get into the Senate, James Abdnor, is also of Arab/Lebanese descent. He was a Kennebec area farmer who had a long political career in the SD GOP that ended with Daschle's win.

So both the guy who nutured Daschle's career, and one of the people he beat to get it going were Lebanese Americans. Again, I'm pretty sure neither were Muslim -- all of the prairie Lebanese that I've heard of were Christians.

The most interesting thing I turned up was on a SD blog from back in April (and it should get more play here on FR). It is that memos were turned up in former Senator Abourezk's public archives that make clear that Randell Beck, now big cheese at the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader (Daschle's amen corner), was working hand in glove with James Abourezk and the Democrats, advising them on how to handle public relations better.

It pretty much proves what everyone knows: he is a Democrat/Daschle shill.

The entry is halfway down, with links to pdf's of the documents.

http://southdakotapolitics.blogs.com/south_dakota_politics/2004/week17/