Senator Jim Bunning, currently running for reëlection as Kentucky’s Junior Senator, apparently thinks that all foreigners look alike. He recently said of his Democratic challenger, Dan Mongiardo, “He looks like one of Saddam Hussein’s sons.” Mongiardo, actually a son of Italian immigrants, has demanded an apology and the release of the videotape showing Bunning saying this. Bunning has issued neither. Here’s the story.
How in hell’s name does Bunning think this is appropriate? Will the people of Kentucky see fit to boot this piece of filth from the Senate this year? Christ, I hope so.
Hey, does Senator Bunning look like Joey Buttafuco? No harm in saying it if that’s what I think, right? Jesus, Bunning, you’re a goddamned idiot.
You want to know the scary thing? I live in Kentucky, and I haven’t heard anything about this. What does that say about the state of things in this state?
Given the present mood of the more hysterical element of the body politic you know that sooner or later there is going to be some knight arrant seeking high office who will assert that he is more deserving of the people’s trust because he is “%100 American” while his opponent is tainted with foreign chromosomes. I suspect that our boy in Tennessee was just running the %100 flag up the pole to see if anybody would salute.
Remember what happened in Alabama in the last election cycle.
The rest is a spoof (yes, already) of the Bushies’ predictable continuation of that tactic.
The last time we had real Republican primaries, one candidate (and I forget who, sorry) made a point of addressing DE Governor Pete DuPont in a debate by his real name, Pierre - and that was long before the WMD lies.
I’ve heard of jokes, yes. They’re sometimes funny, and sometimes offensive. I’m sure some people got a laugh out of this. It’s still inappropriate.
I agree there’s no need to make a racial issue out of everything. Regrettably, Senator Bunning has made a racial issue out of this, so I’m responding to it. Anyone who effectively says “Them Eye-talians and A-rabs all look alike” is making a racial issue.
Bunning claims that he has apologized, but there’s no evidence that he’s actually apologized. If he thinks that saying that he’s apologized is the same thing as actually apologizing, then he is nuts.
The idea that all swarthy people look alike is yours, not Bunning’s. Bunning merely said that the guy looks similar to the Husseins. You are probably correct in that a large portion (or all) of the similarity is the skin color. But that does not imply that all such people look alike, only that they are alike in having swarthy skin.
True. Along the same lines, if you think “no evidence that he apologized” (whatever that means) is the same as “he did not apologize” then you are nuts.
Well, Iz, if you see any other plausible reason for Bunning to have made this “joke”, let’s hear it. It’s pretty much undeniably playing the race card - worse, it’s first creating a race card, then playing it. Something along the lines of the conservative-interest-group ad in South Dakota morphing a picture of Tom Daschle into one of Saddam Hussein.
As for the second part of your inventive attempt at excusemaking, surely you’re familiar with the non-apologetic apology, aren’t you? The one that makes it impossible to continue criticism while still reassuring your supporters that you meant it anyway and aren’t sorry one bit? He’s pol enough to do that, and has done it. Consider your answer in light of Bunning’s first, lyingly, having denied saying it at all - ooh, those pesky tape recorders! Consider it also in light of his record of similar actions.
Because he thought it was funny and he thought his audience would find it funny. Which is pretty much the reason most people tell jokes, what do you know.
Is it at all possible to keep you from reciting an endless litany of conservative sins? Like the conservatives that tried to portray Bush as Hitler, or the conservatives that said we need to kill Rumsfeld. Oh wait - those were liberals, sorry.
Try to keep on topic please, if that is at all possible for your knee-jerk partisan brain. That topic would be Bunning.
Yes
Well I’ll have to see it from a source much much more reliable than yourself before I believe it. But even if it were true, it merely means that he lied about it to save himself from possible political harm. (A much better motivation than you have, generally).
I haven’t seen any. (And yes, I’ve read all your posts.)
The story’s been in the Herald-Leader quite a bit lately. Don’t know about the t.v. newscasts-I’m at work then.
I didn’t vote for that ass last time, but it didn’t do any good.
Please. This was at a political dinner. A pol is never off-duty, especially there. Nice try at evasion.
This thread is about Bunning. All I’ve posted has been from him or his campaign. Nice try at well-poisoning, though.
I assume you have a cite for either of those from a candidate himself or from someone with more standing than a local whack job? What, you don’t? What a surprise. Not.
Do tell. See above.
Then please get yourself back to it.
I’ve posted several easy-to-find cites. You have jack shit. Who’s reliable here?
No shit, Sherlock. But it also means he’s willing to play the race card, and the patriotism card, if it’s simply expedient for him - and that’s the kindest possible interpretation, ain’t it?
Anyone who reads this considers the source, and the lack of support you provide for your statements… That source would be someone who reflexively attempts to uphold the honor of anyone who styles himself a conservative, facts be damned. True, ain’t it? Now think a little deeper: Just what principles is Bunning showing here that you *really * want to be seen as aligned with?
You have an argument instead of personal potshots, let’s have it. If not, well, we already know that, don’t we? Now pipe down, the grownups are talking.
A little housekeeping: Bunning’s people, his campaign manager specifically, did deny that he made the comment, and they did later apologize for the comment.
In the same Cincinnati Post article is an account of what somebody said Bunning said- this is the only non-blog that I’ve found which offers even a secondhand quote :
But they certainly wouldn’t have had a problem with releasing it if it didn’t prove they lied about it never having happened - well, Izzy might be able to dream up some reason that will sound totally innocent to himself, who knows?
I hope I don’t get in trouble for quoting the ad linked to by **ElvisL1ves ** without the proper cite. To find the cite, you’ll have to read his post. I don’t know how to do those nifty hypertext cite thingies.
Nonetheless, sorry to hijack, but I have to come to Senator Bunning’s defense concerning the Fancy Farm ad (as a rather liberal Dem, a true rarity in Kentucky, I certainly hate to do so). Baesler’s claim that Bunning was trying to portray him as Hitler-esque was a very weak attempt at damage control. The ad showed footage of an animated, sweating, sputtering Baesler during an old-fashioned stump speech in which he held up a pair of Senator Ford’s shoes and went on and on about how he wanted to be the one to fill those shoes. That sounds like a decent gimmick for such a speech, right? Well, Baesler’s delivery was so animated and out of character for him that he looked like a complete fool. Bunning’s campaign would certainly have been amiss not to have used the footage in some type of ad. The Wagner music merely furthered the comedy. You’re kidding yourself if you think that Baesler’s campaign would not have jumped all over similar footage featuring Bunning. I have to agree with the quoted article, though, that the NAFTA ad was totally tasteless, as were the comments he made about Senator Mongiardo.
Regardless of Bunning’s comments, I fear that Mongiardo is dead meat come November. Although he’s the vice chairman of the state Democratic party, few people outside southeast Kentucky know who he is and I don’t see how he conceiveably can play catch up and hope to beat an incumbent candidate that will likely outspend him by a sizeable margin.
Holy fucking shit. What’s the difference between your thought police and the conservatives’ thought police? Fucking hell. Four more fucking years. And by then, your assimilation will be complete. Shit. It’s fucking hopeless. These liberal rants lately are pathetic. Bush has people shrilling in his own administration! Brunning said that some guy who looks like Uday looks like Uday! I may as well vote for Nader after all. Who the hell is going to vote for Kerry if this kind of crap is what he’s all about? At least Nader is a real liberal.
