'Bizarre' praise of Osama riles senator's challenger

"I think the statements she made about bin Laden are shocking, and they're bizarre, and they're uninformed," said Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., in an interview with WorldNetDaily. "To try to suggest that bin Laden has a history of generosity and kindness that outweighs his hatred for America and his vows to destroy our country is just nuts."

Meanwhile, teachers from around Washington state have informed a Seattle talk radio host that Murray had made the same comments about bin Laden to their students. But despite comparisons by many of her constituents to Sen. Trent Lott's recent controversial remarks, Murray's statements appear to be generating minimal response from her Senate colleagues.

Last Wednesday, at the conclusion of a session with students at Columbia River High School in Vancouver, Wash., Murray said she wanted to bring up a further point to add to their discussion about alternatives to war.

"We've got to ask, why is this man so popular around the world?" she said in reference to bin Laden, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "Why are people so supportive of him in many countries that are riddled with poverty?"

Murray said, according to the Vancouver Columbian newspaper, that bin Laden has been "out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day care facilities, building health care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful. We haven't done that."

The second-term senator then asked the students to ponder: "How would they look at us today if we had been there helping them with some of that rather than just being the people who are going to bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan?"

Nethercutt said he usually does not speak out against anyone in his state's delegation to the nation's capital.

"But this one just hit me wrong because of the lasting implication it leaves with students who are impressionable," Nethercutt told WND. "And to have a senator suggest that Osama bin Laden is a good guy and the U.S. hasn't done anything to help people is just nonsense.

"I think she should make clear to those students that she's not criticizing the United States and praising Osama bin Laden, which to me it's clear that she did," Nethercutt said.

Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes contends that bin Laden was not building schools and health-care facilities but a terrorist infrastructure. Any benefits accrued by the people of Afghanistan or Sudan were done to buy off his protectors, he maintained in an interview with WND.

Bin Laden himself has denied that he and his followers are motivated by economic factors.

"Allah has ordered us to make holy wars and to fight to see to it that his word is the highest and the uppermost and that of the unbelievers the lowermost," bin Laden said in a 1998 interview that included John Miller of ABC News. "We believe that this is the call we have to answer regardless of our financial capabilities."

Murray told the Tacoma News Tribune that she was shocked by the response to what she considered a free-ranging discussion conducted in the American spirit of free speech.

"I am astonished the Republican Party would try to spin out of control a conversation with high school students," she said. "Republicans have been trying for six months to use the war on terrorism for political purposes."

But school teachers from around Washington state say they have heard these comments before from Murray at similar gatherings of students, according to Seattle talk radio host and former Republican gubernatorial candidate John Carlson.

"She is saying these things all over the state," Carlson said on his afternoon, drive-time show on KVI radio. "A U.S. senator is misleading children about Osama bin Laden."

Carlson's caller lines were lit up from mostly angry listeners for three hours on Friday afternoon. Many insisted that Murray should resign, asserting that her remarks were more egregious than comments by Sen. Trent Lott, who consequently stepped down from his Senate majority post on Friday.

A listener from Gig Harbor, Wash., calling for Murray to resign or be recalled, said, "I don't want my daughter growing up represented by this woman."

Talk show host Lars Larson in Portland, just across the Columbia River from Vancouver, Wash., promoted his afternoon show Friday with a teaser, "Trent Lott steps aside ... Sen. Patty Murray ... should she do the same?"

Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, responded to Murray's remarks Friday in an interview with National Public Radio's Neal Conan when asked whether the uproar over Trent Lott would be a permanent problem for his party. Bennett said he thought the "fuss" would fade when the next controversy comes along.

"Today's cosmic story suddenly disappears when you turn to tomorrow's," Bennett said. "I read on the press now, for example, that Patty Murray, the senator from Washington, has praised Osama bin Laden in terms almost similar to the ones that Lott used for Strom Thurmond – that is, she said bin Laden is a humanitarian, and we are not, and that's why we're in trouble."

Bennett said he believed "we'll begin to see people parsing that statement and move on to the next crisis. Now Patty's not the majority leader, so maybe nobody will pay that much attention to what she said. ?"

Both a Republican and a Democratic senator minimized Murray's remarks during an interview with Brit Hume on Fox News Sunday yesterday.

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., said he hoped that Murray would rephrase her comments.

"The idea that Patty Murray thinks we should pattern ourselves after bin Laden is not – I don't believe she thinks that at all," Biden told Hume. "I think it's a very bad choice of words."

"Well, clearly what Senator Murray and all the rest of us ought to be talking about is our own public diplomacy. What do we do in that area – I wouldn't want to use Osama bin Laden as she did – and she probably regrets doing so – as sort of a benchmark. That is a tragic thought."

Hume then pressed Lugar, reciting Murray's subsequent elaboration of her remarks.

"Well, hold on just a second, senator," said Hume. "Let me just – let's show you what she actually did say when pressed about this in reaction. She said, 'Osama bin Laden is an evil terrorist who is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans. Bringing him to justice, dismantling his terrorist network and protecting our nation from further attacks must continue to be our government's highest priority.' She then goes on to say nothing that said – that retracted any of the stuff she said about his humanitarian philanthropy, if you will, and so on. So, the statement then to some extent stands. What about that?'

Lugar replied that in further discussions, he supposed that Murray "would say more."

Hume told Biden that what he and Lugar were saying reminded him of the initial mild reaction to Sen. Lott's remarks to Strom Thurmond.

"Different issue, of course," Hume said to Biden. "Different arena. But a forgiving attitude toward a colleague who you feel, perhaps with some empathy, may have slipped up. But I wonder if a slip-up of this kind, portraying this man as a humanitarian benefactor and going on to say the United States, in effect, is not, is something that can be tolerated in a member of the [Democratic Party] leadership."

Murray was chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in the 107th Congress.

She was elected to the Senate in 1992 as a self-described "mom in tennis shoes." She got her start in politics in 1980 when anger over Washington state's cancellation of a pre-school program her children attended prompted a drive to the capital Olympia to lobby for funding. She says she hit a brick wall when a lawmaker said, "You can't make a difference. You're just a mom in tennis shoes."

Murray then led a statewide campaign to restore the funds and eventually served in the state legislature before election to the U.S. Senate.

Oh no, not again.
Folks, if you thought the media firestorm over Trent Lott was overkill, well, you ain't seen nothing yet, my friends. Just wait till the media jackals, licking their chops, sink their teeth into this one.
Brace yourself: I predict the latest GOP foot-in-mouth/faux pas, once the network newsies get wind of it, will make you downright nostalgic for Lott. Jennings, Rather, Brokaw, Woodruff et al, right about now, are probably drooling.
What is it with Hill Republicans and bloopers these days, anyway? Sheesh, haven't we already been embarrassed enough? Seemingly, when it comes to gaffes/goofs/verbal boners, Congressional Republicans have, for reasons which baffle me, more than their fair share. Is there something in the water, or what?
One wag suggested, only half-jokingly, keeping a muzzle on GOP pieholes.
Talk about handing our enemies the ammo to shoot us, the blooper I'm about to tell you about, far and away, takes the cake.
No, it's not another 'racially tinged' remark, if that's any comfort, but it's verbal arson guaranteed to spark an even bigger media hullabaloo, all the same.
And, worse still, unlike the Lott spat -- which, despite weeks of negative publicity, ended with Republicans on top and Democrats on defense again -- this looming controversy has, I'm afraid, the potential for real, long-lasting damage to the Party.
It involves, at once, the GOP's greatest strength but the Democrats' greatest vulnerability: National Security.
Democrats, chafing after midterm elections dominated by questions of security and defense, will, no doubt, go to town on this latest GOP gaffe. Republicans, from Presidents Dwight Eisenhower to Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush, have, on foreign and defense matters, amassed considerable political capital. Then along comes this stupid GOP Senator whose slip-of-the-tongue threatens to throw it all away. Incredibly, this Senator is, to boot, up for reelection in '04!
What Senator, you ask? What slip-of-the-tongue?
Well, you're not going to believe this (actually, when I heard about it, I could barely believe it myself) but, here goes:
First of all, this GOP Senator, to be fair, claims she was only trying to be "intentionally provocative" in an effort to elicit a thoughtful discussion, you see. Speaking last week to students at a high school honors class in Vancouver, Wash., GOP Senator Patty Murray (R-Wa.) touched off a furor after telling attendees that America has a lot to learn from terror mastermind Osama bin Laden -- no, not the terrorism, but what she called his tireless work to "help" the sick and the poor of this world.
"We've got to ask: Why is this man [Osama] so popular around the world?" the GOP Senator Thursday told dumbfounded students at Columbia River High School. "Why are people so supportive of him in many countries that are riddled with poverty?"
He's also got, I would add, a huge fan base at Harvard and Berkeley and Hollywood and CNN and Democrat National Committee headquarters, but that's besides the point.
So, why is Osama so popular? Because, 'splains Sen. Murray, Osama is not as bad as evil Bush makes him out to be, after all; in fact, he's a pretty swell dude -- more like a missionary whose vocation in life is doing good works, works of charity, serving the poor -- a kinda Mother Teresa with nails-and-bolts-packed explosives strapped to her body.
Sure, his 'noble deeds' include leveling a couple of skyscrapers one September morning, and, sure, thousands of innocent men, women and children perished, but, hey, can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, right?
Forget 9/11 for a moment, Sen. Murray seems to suggest, instead wrap your mind around all the wonderful altruism Osama, the virtuous terrorist, er, philanthropist, has provided:
"He's been out in these countries [serving the poor] for decades," Sen. Murray gushed, "building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day-care facilities, building health care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful."
So, how does warmonger Bush stack up against big-hearted Osama and his unselfish devotion to the downtrodden and powerless? Has Bush shown as much good-will and concern for the well-being of the poor and oppressed as Osama has?
No way, says Sen. Murray. "We haven't done that."
Why, Osama's loving and caring, kinder and gentler, 'compassionate terrorism' beats Bush's 'compassionate conservatism' hands-down, says Sen. Murray!
"How would [the poor] look at us today," Sen. Murray mused, "if we had, [like Osama], been there helping them . . . rather than just being the people who are going to bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan?"
Her fellow Republicans, to their credit, immediately pounced.
"It is absolutely outrageous and despicable to imply," said state GOP chairman Chris Vance, "that the American government should learn a lesson from the madman who murdered thousands of American citizens."
Mr. Vance added angrily that he knows "Sen. Murray has a habit of sticking her foot in her mouth, but this goes way beyond a simple gaffe," it "sent the message to these students that the United States somehow deserved or brought on the September 11 terrorists attacks. I think all decent people can agree that we most certainly did not, that this was an unprovoked attack of terrorism."
Strong words, yes, but the real test, as I see it, is whether Republicans take it a step further, beyond demanding retraction, and call on one of their own to resign, making the Senate 50-50 again, putting the Democrats within striking distance of retaking the gavel in January.
One thing about this episode I do find strange, very strange though: This happened last Thursday, right? That's 5 days ago; here we are, five full news cycles later, yet, the networks have yet to pick up this story...
I just can't figure that out...
Unless . . . UNLESS . . . WAIT A MINUTE!
AH-HA! I should've known! Patty Murray's a DEMOCRAT, NOT A REPUBLICAN!
What was I thinking?! Sheesh!
Small wonder we haven't heard a peep from Tom Brokaw, nor Dan Rather, nor Peter Jennings about any of this. The media would rake a Republican Patty Murray over the coals by now. We'd see endless 'Will-Patty-Murray-Be-Forced-To-Resign?, or, 'Is-This-The-End-Of-The-Republican-Party?' media panel discussions/symposiums. Shows titled, 'GOP melt-down: Countdown to bankruptcy" would breed like rabbits. Apologies? To heck with apologies -- nothing short of her hand on a platter would satisfy the press. Even censure wouldn't suffice.
Will we ever even see a network blurb on this?
Ha! Don't hold your breath.
By the way, her office defends her comments this way: Look, Osama's no darling, but, hey, he's not some white southerner running as a Dixiecrat, either! So there!
So Strom Thurmond is, by this perversion of logic, worse than Osama bin Laden.
Go figure.
Some question Murray's sanity.
I say, what sanity?
Anyway, that's...
My Two Cents...
"JohnHuang2"

If you are starving to death and some one starts to feed you, your going to listen to what they might have to say, he wins their hearts and minds. What Senator Murry was saying is we have to fight Bin Laden for the hearts and minds of the illiterate masses of the world.

If we feed them the message they will hear will be a positive pro-american pro-western message, if Bin Laden feeds them the message they will hear is Death To America, Death To Israel.

OBL offers his ignorant people blame, not food. Are you suggesting that OBL feeds every Arab that follows him? Every Arab that needs food is taken care of by bin Laden? He's wealthy, but he's no Bill Gates. I'm willing to bet the vast majority of his followers haven't seen a bread crumb from him. OBL offers his followers the same thing that the theocracies offer their people over there. A scapegoat. They don't want their people to see reality (Why are the leaders so damn rich and we're so damn poor?), they want to put all blame onto the shoulders of the U.S.A. When you run a stone-aged society, the easiest country to blame is the one that is out in the open on its own prosperity, freedom, and luxury. Us. The U.S.

Why should we feed them? Why should we be blackmailed? This is a very liberal view you are presenting, feeding the world so that they don't blow us up. This is the way to socialism, providing people with the means to survive without any sort of exchange, simply because they need it and demand it and will kill people if they don't get it.

I know what you are trying to say, and to some extent I agree with you. There is a reason OBL is popular, but it doesn't mean he's doing something right. It doesn't mean we should follow suit. He's evil, incarnate, and simply because the ignorant follow him doesn't mean he's got the right idea.

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.