Posted on 08/13/2002 1:57:59 PM PDT by rickmichaels
"America has little to teach and much to learn," scandal-plagued Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., said in the 1990s to a Muslim audience including such extremists as professor Sami Al-Arian, Ahmed bin Yousef and Ramadan Shallah, now head of the terrorist group Islamic Jihad.
"The O'Reilly Factor" dropped this bombshell Monday night on Fox News Channel. Not surprisingly, Torricelli refused to appear on the program and explain himself. What did he mean by his outrageous comment, and who exactly did he want to teach America a lesson? And what sort of lesson?
The senator's chief of staff, Danny O'Brien, claimed that Torch had no idea that terrorist sympathizers were in the audience, Fox's Bill O'Reilly reported.
Even if that's true, how can a U.S. senator, even a left-wing Democrat, make such a hateful, arrogant, pandering statement about his own country?
O'Reilly's guest, Kirk Victor of National Journal, said Torricelli's biggest problem was the scandal involving contributor David Chang.
O'Reilly remarked: "We all know what happened here. He took stuff he shouldn't have taken, and the powerful protect each other, as usual in Washington. The people don't have a right to know exactly what happened. It's a disgrace." As for the Torricelli's blame-America-first comment, O'Reilly said "the fact remains that the statement is dubious, and we need to know what that is. And the senator, I wish he was on right now to tell us what he meant by that, but perhaps he'll come on later on." We're waiting, senator. And how about Tom Daschle - does the Senate plurality leader still embrace Torricelli and all he stands for?
Meanwhile, rival Douglas Forrester continues to rise in the polls as the November election draws closer.
Boloney! If he would have just said "we have much to learn", I could buy that, but he said "we have little to teach" to those that have been attacking us since the Iranian hostage crisis. He's a "Blame America Firster".
Congressman Billybob
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Of course it won't. The AP and their democrat allies in the press will ratchet up the lies and hyperbole this month and go into full campaign mode for the democrats right after Labor Day.
I had a radical leftist professor say the same thing. If this meeting was taped then it had better appear in a Forrester ad.
In the U.S. Senate race in New Jersey, Muslims rallied to Democrat Robert Torricelli after his opponent, Republican Richard Zimmer, accused him of pandering to Islamic terrorists. Torricelli had appeared at an Arab-American gathering that reportedly was attended by guests with ties to Hamas, a militant organization opposed to the state of Israel. Torricelli likened the attack to an ethnic smear.
And no, I don't recall hearing about this before.
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