Media ignored Dick Armey's attack on Dobson and his "gang of thugs"
A Media Matters for America review of cable and broadcast networks and major newspapers showed no coverage of recent criticism by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) of the "embarrassing spectacle of the Republican Party's "blatant pandering" to the Christian right and James Dobson, founder and chairman of Focus on the Family. Armey asserted that "Dobson and his gang of thugs are real nasty bullies." Armey's comments appeared in a September 23 op-ed (subscription required) in The Wall Street Journal and in an interview with author Ryan Sager, which was excerpted on September 15, on the weblog RealClearPolitics.com and on Sager's blog. Sager interviewed Armey in 2005 for Sager's book The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians and the Battle to Control the Republican Party (Wiley, August 2006).
In his Wall Street Journal op-ed decrying the "juvenile delinquency" of "election season," Armey wrote:
The national representatives of the social conservative movement used to be sophisticated and tolerant. Today, they are sophomoric and angry. It's an embarrassing spectacle seeing leaders bullied around by the likes of James Dobson, or watching the Christian Coalition team up with MoveOn.org in support of bigger government.
When Sager asked Armey, "What's wrong with today's Republican Congress," Armey replied:
The criteria of choice in just about every behavior you see in Congress today is politics. Where in the hell did this Terri Schiavo thing come from? There's not a conservative, Constitution-loving, separation-of-powers guy alive in the world that could have wanted that bill on the floor. That was pure, blatant pandering to James Dobson. That's all that was. It was silly, stupid, and irresponsible. Nobody serious about the Constitution would do that. But the question was will this energize our Christian conservative base for the next election.
On his personal blog, Sager posted a portion of his interview with Armey that was not included in the RealClearPolitics.com September 15 excerpt. During this segment, he asked Armey, "Why does it seem Christian conservatives are more powerful now than in the 1990s?" Armey responded:
To a large extent because Dobson and his gang of thugs are real nasty bullies. I pray devoutly every day, but being a Christian is no excuse for being stupid. There's a high demagoguery coefficient to issues like prayer in schools. Demagoguery doesn't work unless it's dumb, shallow as water on a plate. These issues are easy for the intellectually lazy and can appeal to a large demographic. These issues become bigger than life, largely because they're easy. There ain't no thinking.
Together with the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, and other Christian right interest groups, Dobson's recently founded political organization, Focus on the Family Action, co-sponsored the 2006 Values Voter Summit, a major conference in Washington from September 22-24. Among the speakers were conservative icons including Ann Coulter, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), Sen. George Allen (R-VA), Fox News host Sean Hannity, and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales. The stated goal of the conference was to "educate and equip Values Voters on today's family issues."
If this gets out, if the media goes with this story and doens't ignore it, well, then where does that leave those on this site that endlessly profess the following;
That these people, the Dobsons, the Coulters, the Hannitys and the rest really speak for ALL conservatives.
This thread may finally shred that idiotic myth once and for all.
Thank you MMFA!
The existence of Dobson,etal is in any case a manifestation of thesis/antithesis in that something has to counterweight the radicals who have hijacked the Democrats.
But you're right--they won't want to promote this story. Our posts may be the only ones. Someone probably got fired @MMFA over this.
Watch 'em get PO'd now.
Wow...two straw men in a row. It must be a record. I haven't seen anyone claim that Coulter and her fellow fascists speak for ALL conservatives. They do give conservatives a bad name, because the talking bobbleheads let them represent themselves as conservatives. Actually, they are radicals. True conservatives are more like Barry Goldwater, and, apparently Dick Armey.
I never thought I'd say this, but hooray for Dick Armey! If he and people like him would take the Republican party back from the fascists who control it now, I might actually vote for a Republican again someday.
They must be the counterpoint to all the Dems protesting at Soldiers funerals, calling for the assasination of the President and a Supreme Court justice, and beating conservatives with baseball bats. Or killing one hundred million people. Wait, those Democrats dont exist. Except in your fevered imagination.
Every time I've seen you put up this strawman, I've seen someone knock it down by pointing out that the right allows these people to become their spokesperson unless they speak out against them. And here is an example of a Republican speaking out against someone in his own party, and of course the media fails to report it. Explain again why the left wouldn't want this story to get out?
Tommy, perhaps you should reread the post.
Dick Armey indites the Republican Party - he speaks of the "embarrassing spectacle of the Republican Party's "blatant pandering" to the Christian right and James Dobson, founder and chairman of Focus on the Family."
In response to the question - "What's wrong with today's Republican Congress" ? He replies:
"The criteria of choice in just about every behavior you see in Congress today is politics. Where in the hell did this Terri Schiavo thing come from? There's not a conservative, Constitution-loving, separation-of-powers guy alive in the world that could have wanted that bill on the floor. That was pure, blatant pandering to James Dobson. That's all that was. It was silly, stupid, and irresponsible. Nobody serious about the Constitution would do that. But the question was will this energize our Christian conservative base for the next election."
Everyone knows the power the Christian Right wields in Republican politics. It's no secret. I suggest you spend a few weeks watching Rod Parsley, John Hagee, and Pat Robertson. Catch as much of their programming as possible. I've been keeping and eye on them for at least five years. They all have huge audiences and promote the conservative agenda. They get their people to the polls.
Like it or not - Christians conservatives are why Republicans have control of the White House and both Houses of Congress. Hannity, Coulter, Gingrich, and Allen know this. That's why they speak at their conferences.
Do these speak for ALL Conservatives? No. Apparently just the largest voting block.
While it is very true that Dobson and the rest of those like him do not represent all conservatives, they do speak for a large number of rabid conservatives. That alone speaks to why we need to stay on top of what these people are advocating and take action when necessary.
checking the guest list above we see 1 unfaithful divorced man (Gingrich), 1 senator who's said to have made racial epithets in his youth (Allen), 1 AG who advises a president that its ok to ignore the constitution (Gonzales), and 2 shamelss self promoters who engage in name calling and call it debate (Hannity & Coulter). To be honest I don't see alot of "values" there.
None who got b@#$jobs in the oval office, none who went to the National Archives Max. Security files and stuffed documents into his pants, none whose party pretends he wasn't a KKK member (Byrd), and of course none who could save New Orleans with a dramatic water rescue, somebody like, say, Teddy Kennedy.
Personally, I'd rather have a president who gets blowjobs in the oval office on a daily basis than one who lies us into an UNNECESSARY war so that his cronies can line their pockets with fat defense contracts.
Bush makes Clinton look like George Washington.
How do you compare getting b@#$jobs in the oval office, and even lying about it, to the kind of things that are going on and being lied about today? One b@#$job compared to how many prisoners tortured? One b@#$job compared to how many of our soldiers killed by IEDs? One b@#$job compared to how much of our budget defecit? One b@#$job compared to America's prestige? Sorry, I don't think anyone died or was even hurt by a b@#$job.
58000 (that's fifty-eight thousand) by bl@#$%bs Kennedy, Johnson, and McNamara.
Try to be specific in your retort. Remember--58,000.
More than 15,000 died on Nixon's evil watch.
No contest there.
Very similar -- the Gulf of Tonkin Resoultion was based on some very creative intelligence, almost as creative as in Bush's lead-up to the Iraq invasion. But that one was 35 years ago and it's hard to do anything about that but weep -- and most of the worst offenders are dead; this one is still going on, the mistakes are still being made, the lies are still being told -- and the perpetrators are still in office!
The plan had been drafted at least six months before the incident in The Gulf of Tonkin. Just like the plan for Iraq was in place for a long time before the invasion took place in March of 2003.
And now some items that are not similar.
As confusing and immoral as the War in Vietnam seemed at the time, this War in Iraq seems a lot worse. We had a larger percentage of the occupied population supporting us than we do in Iraq. The government then sent qualified support personnel who had experience in their fields, not party loyalists and cronies. Then as with any war, many prospered, but none with such close ties to the White House.
The big difference is that during The War in Vietnam, every family was effected in some way. We all had someone to lose. Our sons and brothers were either serving or worried about being drafted. Not so now. Most of us can go about our day and never think of war. We feel it will never touch us. Let's hope it doesn't. Back then we were required to do more than putting a bumper sticker on our cars.
would you just give it a rest? Senator Byrd has APOLOGIZED for his membership in the Klan (something which he also abandoned more than a few decades ago, by the by).
And, as for the Kennedy reference, would you care to explain why "conservatives" can just brush off Dubya's COCAINE AND ALCOHOL ABUSE through HIS MID 30s as "youthful" indiscretions? Why do "conservatives" just brush aside the missing year of Dubya's National Guard "service" while vilifying the records of honorable men (like John Murtha and Max Cleland) who truly served their country? Is it a true "conservative" value to bring a stillborn child home for its brothers and sisters to see (not even the Addams Family would find that acceptable)?
Face it, dude, your "conservative" heroes have as many things in their past of which they're not proud (Congressmen whose secretaries turn up dead in their local offices or who serve divorce papers to their hospitalized wives or go through multiple marriages--they must thank Henry VIII every time they remarry). Go back to your bridge.
and I really enjoyed one on Bush that I heard the other day. Some comedian was saying, "so Bush got a DUI in 1976...does anybody remember just how hammered you had to be in 1976 to actually GET a DUI?
Well, I kinda remember...and I got a heckuva kick out of it.
You had to be there.
If we are going to count skeletons in Politicians closets we will have enough to populate a medium sized city from both sides of the aisle.
The anti-Tex has arrived.
I love it.
. . .there's no real definition of exactly what values are included.
It's quite possible the guest list did accurately reflect the "values" being promoted by the group. (I honestly wouldn't be surprised if that's the case.)
The huge number of right-wingers involved in this is amazing, though not surprising.
such as Dick Armey becomes a voice of reason among Republicans you know that party is currently run by a bunch of Cheswicks.
At the values voters summit pastors got up on stage and referred to gays as "faggots", claimed that the "gay rights movement" ideologically ascended from the "pits of hell" and one pastor also claimed that the "anti-christ will be a homosexual". They have audio links over at think progress.
Media Matters needs to report this vile trash.
[link to thinkprogress.org]
"one pastor also claimed that the "anti-christ will be a homosexual"
I've seen it said that the anti-Christ "will be everything Christ was not"...personally, apart from all the obvious "evil" things I can think of...I interpreted that to also mean she will be female.
And yes, I'm female too.
I'd agree with Dick "Dick" Armey about anything. Although I remember back when he was actually an elected politician he pandered to the "Christian" conservatives with the best of them.
I remember him primarily as one of the lead Witch Hunters during the Clinton years. Could it be that he sees the writing on the wall... that the public may soon tire of the Troglodytes running the Republican party and turn back to the center?
knew he was pandering to wackos back in the day, but he had to pander to the wackos to get elected as a Republican.
I'm just gonna let you guys keep giving each other a backrub, and move on to some other topic here.