Free Republic

WASHINGTON (April 22) -- House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said today that he regretted calling vocal opponents of health care reform "un-American" but compared the angry rhetoric of some Republican leaders who goad them on to the fiery rantings of a controversial Depression-era priest sympathetic to the Nazis. "That was not a good phrase, not a good use of language. It was not correct," the Maryland Democrat said of an op-ed column he and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote in USA Today last summer. The article was a response to protesters who disrupted town hall meetings on their party's health...

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer said Thursday he and Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a mistake when they called "tea party" participants "un-American" last year. "That was not a good phrase, not a good use of language, it was not correct," Mr. Hoyer, Maryland Democrat, said, adding that he did not see anything wrong with vigorous debating of philosophies. Mr. Hoyer and Mrs. Pelosi wrote an op-ed article... "Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American," the two wrote. The charge became a rallying cry for tea partiers.

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer said Thursday he and Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a mistake when they called "tea party" participants "un-American" last year. "That was not a good phrase, not a good use of language, it was not correct," Mr. Hoyer, Maryland Democrat, said, adding that he did not see anything wrong with vigorous debating of philosophies. In August, in the middle of a summer in which members of Congress were sometimes shouted down at town halls by constituents furious over the health care bill, Mr. Hoyer and Mrs. Pelosi wrote an op-ed article in USA Today decrying...