Posted on 11/19/2002 6:40:11 AM PST by MP5
NOV. 19, 2002: GORE SPEAKS Scary Republicans: ABC’s excellent news blog, The Note yesterday had an interesting out-take from the Gore family’s interview with Barbara Walters that was broadcast on Friday.
WALTERS: I'm not sure that people realize that while you were in the residence of the Vice President [during the Florida recount] there were crowds of people outside screaming at you. What was that all about?
AL GORE: Well, this was the Republican response to what was happening during that 36-day period, and they organized busloads of people that came and stood outside the house all day and all night screaming at the top of their lungs.
WALTERS: What, "Get out!"?
TIPPER GORE: Things like that, yes, and, and sometimes … things that we don't want to say on your program, and, some people saw that they were buses from "churches," but it was organized. The one thing that, that they did mainly was reach the bedrooms of our children, and Albert was still in school locally, and trying to study, so we rearranged, you know, they … kids moved to a different part of the house, and I was trying to think of a way that we could kind of laugh about this since obviously it was out of our control, there wasn't anything anybody could do so I got all the boom boxes in the house and … I remember sort of what the government did with Noriega … I thought we'd try that, and I aimed them at, toward, you know, where the crowd …
WALTERS: The crowd?
TIPPER GORE: … And I put nature sounds on and turned it all the way up. And at least the kids laughed.
AL GORE: There were a few, more than a few who supported us and were offended by the organized chanting round the clock who came out on the other street corner during the day to express their support with signs, and … You know, emotions were running high throughout the country and it was just an unprecedented time.
KARENNA GORE: Well, when we were in the Vice President's house during the recount, it was it was very intense. And one of the things I remember is that there was a … an organized effort by, I don't know whether it was the RNC or it was … it was right-wing groups, it was definitely Bush-campaign-oriented effort to bus in people to have a sort of siege at the Vice President's house, and, so, they were all lining there, screaming, and it was kind of an assortment of groups. I mean, some of them were anti, um, were anti-abortion groups, and some of them were pro-gun groups, and some of them … they all had their different signs. But they were all screaming, "Get out of Cheney's house," the whole time. And I just remember being there next to my dad, because I went for a run, and I ran back through them, and I was very upset when I came into the house. And my whole attitude was, like, "We've got to fight back harder. And where are our crowds?" And my dad, I'll never forget his response. He said, "We have to do what's best for the country, and it is not good for the country to have this kind of divisiveness. And he was on the phone, really calling off the dogs. There were people who wanted to fan the … the flames of the racial issue and have real unrest. And he was on the phone asking them not to, because of what was best for the country not because of what was best for him politically. And that's really who he is.
WALTERS: Do you remember the crowds outside screaming?
KRISTEN GORE: The crowds that were screaming outside our house, you know, "Get out of Cheney's house." And other things … of that nature, were really upsetting. It was difficult … It was just very … upsetting that someone would … yell those things at us. It felt … we felt sort of like … trapped in this … you know, little house with all these people yelling mean things. It's no fun. You know, whether you're a child of the person who they're directed at, or anyone else. It … it wasn't a good situation.
WALTERS: Were you scared?
KRISTEN GORE: I was scared that the truth was not going to come out. That's what I was.
**
Emotions ran high during the Florida recount and I can understand that the Gores might be distressed by having protesters assemble under their windows. On the other hand, their description of those protests is a little – what’s the word we kept using during the campaign? – hyperbolic.
My family attended the protests Gore complains of. (My Labrador retriever was even photographed by a wire service reporter impressed by Cobber’s “Dogs for Bush” sandwich board.) On the day we showed up, the crowd numbered perhaps 50 people; about a dozen Gore supporters assembled a block away. They did indeed chant “Get Out of Cheney’s House” and wave placards and urge commuters to honk – but they did not scream and it would be absurd to describe them as in any way threatening. Some of them were no doubt a little eccentric, but the median age of the group was about 45, and they dutifully obeyed the police barricades that confined them to the sidewalks on the east side of Massachusetts Avenue, at least 200 yards from the vice president’s house on the west side.
One protester carried a megaphone – and I’ll concede that he made more noise than he should have. But as for the rest, I’m left wondering why it is that when 100,000 people march around the White House to oppose military action in Iraq they are exercising their constitutionally protected right of peaceful protest – while when four dozen Republicans demurely exercise their rights, they can be described without demur on national television as if they were a mob of violent maniacs.
Correction: Bob Woodward’s 1991 book about the Gulf War was titled The Commanders not The Generals. I apologize for the error in yesterday’s blog.
The claim was tens of thousands of black people were "disenfranchised". Disenfranchised by "cheap voting machones", until a FReeper did an analysis county by county in FloriDUH and showed that the Votematics were more likely in rich suburean white areas than the opposite. A University of Missouri and a University of Maryland prof did the same thing nationwide.
Mary Francis Berry, the PARTISAN chair of the US Civil Rights Commission could olny get three "disenfranchised voters" to testify at hearings in South Flori-DUH. All three were able to vote. One person complained about an unoccupied police car parked down the street from the poll. Intimidation they claimed. Yet he voted.
Another was in a roadblock. Passed inspection of their paperwork and went two miles to poll and voted.
The third was challenged as a felon, went to the Election Judge/Officals, resolved the problem and voted.
There were racial issues, but they were planted there by DEMOCRATS in search of an excuse to steal the election.
By the way, when was the last time you heard someone whine that the World Series winner didn't get as many hits as the loser?
The only black person that got disenfranchised was Maynard Jackson who should have been the DNC Chair, but Clinton stabbed him in the back to install his own bag man, Terry McAUliffe.
This is pure bravo sierra. Anybody have the URL of the (surprisingly) excellent series of articles in the Washington Post about the Gore loss? One of the articles explicitly mentioned that after the GOP street protests spread, he got on the phone with the unions to bus their members to DC to the Observatory protests.
Coincidentally, that weekend was notable for the actions of a Gore supporter who confronted and suckerpunched a 12 year old boy with a Bush sign and the sad scene of the Gore contingent refusing to say anything to the police when they were questioned about the incident.
I haven't posted on FR since those days (used to go as gogo) - can't even remember my old password so thus my new handle, but man Gore and his ilk seriously piss me off in how deceitful they can be. Everything he and his progeny are saying are lies. GOP bussing, my ass!
And Frum has the numbers all wrong. 4 dozen of us? More like 66 dozen at the height of Gore's attempted power grab.
We held up signs and chanted, but we stayed on our side of the street, a long way back from the residence. I don't see how it could have intimidated anyone. We were demure and well-behaved, as protestors go.
Did anyone hear the "whale sounds" Mrs. Gore said she played? I didn't.
As for Mrs. Gore's insinuation that we shouted things that were improper, the only dirty words I heard were from the side of the street with the pro-Gore people. They were few in number, but they made up for it in nastiness. One of them walked down the street in front of us at one point, shouting "F___ing fascists!" at us over and over.
Yeah, there was a kook with a megaphone out there yelling at the house:
Shame on you Al Gore, shame on you. Have you gone mad! Shame on you for sending your spiritual adviser the racial extortionist Jesse Jackson to the Supreme Court to intimidate our judges and threaten to burn our cities. Have you gone mad! Shame on you Al Gore. Shame, shame, shame.
What this Gore duaghter is saying is that There are Democrats who want to foment racial violence for political reasons WHOA! Nothing is 'racial' about "Get out of Cheney's House!"? Yet Democrats were willing to respond with racial attacks. This whole interview says a lot more about them than about their supposed enemies. They try to play the victim but they are very much in an 'us-vs-them' mode.
Nice guy, really, as I remember.
:-)
I'd listen to Dornan's show tomorrow though....
It's DemocRATS who bus in protestors (dba Rent-A-Mob). As for the "scary" remarks made by the crowd, I remember an incident a few years ago where a group of striking Union pukes beat the crap out of a guy who was counter-protesting. When soon-to-be disgraced ex-President Clinton was asked to comment about the beating, he grinned that dirt-eating grin of his and said, "Heck, I thought it was just good old-fashioned political debate."
Sorry. I meant why didn't Al just move into HIS own house.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.