This is organized political violence. Can we use the term “brownshirt” yet?
To me, it seems that a big difference between Mr Moto’s experience and this one is that this one was instigated by Delay’s people, and the other was something done by a separate group participating in an event. I think that takes the seriousness to another level.
The union guys who took offense to Mr Moto’s signs were in the wrong–but it’s not the same as Mr Moto being roughed up by Bill Clinton’s pals. In the Delay incident, it was the politician’s own people who caused the ruckus. I’m not defending either action, but to equate the two seems like you downplay what happened in Texas.
Sadly, this sort of thing has a long history in American politics and business. As a student of the political history of New York, I can say it’s been going on since god knows when… and I still don’t like it.
(Also against: ‘Free Speech Zones’, AT&T giving all internet traffic to NSA, FBI acting like the Mafia… any number of infringements on our freedoms.)
Let’s see, on one hand we have:
a story about political thuggery that is documented by witnesses, participants and videotape, reported and vetted by reputable news outlets, and traceable to multiple named sources, including DeLay’s own campaign office. The story is that DeLay supporters, including his own paid political operatives, planned and executed an attack on a democratic candidate’s press conference that included violence aganst an elderly Lampson supporter. This was done not in the heat of a contest, but out of sheer malice, as DeLay had already dropped out of the race. Can we discuss that? Not without interference, because we have, on the other hand:
a years-old personal anecdote from a partisan source about mistreatment at the hands of attendees who were supporters of a candidate whose event was being crashed and disrupted by the “victims.”
Forgive me, but these two stories are not equally deserving of our attention today. Mr. Moto is welcome to any sympathy he may have been able to reheat over the years, but why give it one more second’s attention in this thread?
Besides which, **Mr. Moto ** said his companion was harassed by union guys. Maybe they thought she was a scab, on account of the tool she was carrying around.
I called DeLay’s Congressional office sometime between 10:30 and 11am today. They knew nothing about any DeLay statement about yesterday’s incident, but they said they’d check and get back to me. I’ll let you know if I hear anything.
I also called the DeLay for Congress number - the one in the email that I cited in the OP. They didn’t know of any statement by DeLay either, but they didn’t offer to check and get back to me. Big surprise, huh? 
How long do we wait for DeLay to disavow the actions of his campaign crew before we have to conclude he’s condoning what they did?
And for some reason, much of the Christian Right thinks DeLay’s a great guy.
If it didn’t apply to the “riot” DeLay organized, among GOP Congressional staffers he’d shipped down, at the Miami-Dade elections office in 2000, then it doesn’t now, and why do you hate patriotism?
Expect to see more of this kind of stunt in Sugarland in the coming months. From the mouth of Chris Homan, DeLay’s campaign manager:
DeLay campaign manager Chris Homan acknowledged organizing the protesters.
“Nick is Nancy Pelosi’s liberal lapdog from Beaumont, and he should get used to being confronted…for the next seven months,” Homan said.
Since Homan no longer has a campaign to manage, perhaps he should take a nice long vaction.
Found some pics of the event.
And some more pics.
Nick Lampson looks pretty cool and collected considering there’s a screaming mob with an airhorn three feet behind him. Maybe he should try out for the Comedy Central show “Distraction”?
I notice that the guy in the video who assulted the old lady was verrrry close to Lampson in all the shots. In the first one, he’s pacing about 2-3 feet behind Lampman.
And Jerry Falwell’s been insisting that Bill Clinton put a hit on Vince Foster for over a decade. Time doesn’t make it any more truthful.
True. But we’ve got lots of reasons to believe Falwell’s lying to us about that and many other things. Just what reason do we have to believe that Mr. Moto is lying about this one incident? I don’t think his tendency towards slanting the facts in political debates suffices as evidence on this score.
Fucking cocksuckers. Makes me feel really sad for Mr. Moto.
Another part that gets me is airhorn guy blasting the airhorn feet away from a man holding an infant.
None of that is cool, no.
I’m still trying to figure out what exactly DeLay’s minions were trying to accomplish with their little temper tantrum at Lampson’s press conference. DeLay’s not running anymore so why have the counter-rally? Not that I care but the whole incident just made the Republicans in Sugarland, Texas look petty, mean-spirited, and vindictive. I fail to see how that can make them look attractive to voters but my assessment could be completely off-base. Maybe tactics like this will end up galvanizing voters in Sugarland, Texas to vote en masse for whatever Republican is nominated to replace DeLay.
Wow. That is so incredibly stupid of Delay’s supporters to make that kind of scene, especially after Delay himself has described his bowing out of the race as coming to a difficult decision after much prayer. No wonder he hasn’t commented.
I suppose that the positive aspect of that particular nastiness was, from the photos, there didn’t seem to be that many Delay supporters who got the e-mail and participated. Looks like a mere handful of people, ok, well, an angry fistfull…
I should note that the guy behind this has a long history of this sort of nastiness. He once engineered a stunt where his staff stole a bunch of his opponents signs, used them to deface the school that opponent’s kid went to, and then called the police to report the incident. Unfortunately for him, most people put two and two together when it came out that his people were somehow the very first people to see and report the incident.
You’re less cynical than I am, then. I think Moto wouldn’t hesitate for a microsecond to “slant the facts” about the incident in question to score political points.
That video link didn’t work for me.
This short clip shows the guy assaulting the woman. He should be charged.
That is appaling behavior. Regrettably, I suspect both sides of the political arena are equally guilty of this kind of crap. It sickens me and destroys our opportunity to allow reasonable discourse to guide the election process.
Each day, I lose hope for our Republic. It seems that there is little left to save anymore. I think about what George Carlin said (paraphrased): I love people who complain about politicans. When you have an electorate who is selfish, whiny, corrupt and immoral, you get selfish, whiny, corrupt and immoral leaders. This is the best we can do. Garbage in, garbage out.
sigh
Why do you suspect that? It makes no sense.
Besides, whether it’s true or not, the only thing it makes sense to do about it is identify and either prosecute the perpetrators if possible, or embarrass the fool out of them if not. Then you can get an idea of whether it’s both sides, or a lot of one side and not much of the other, or what.
For instance, what we have here is one incident back in 1992 - a whole 'nother era, politically speaking - between a bunch of nobodies on either side, and another that happened last Thursday, at the instigation of a guy who directly reports to Tom DeLay, who up until earlier this year was one of the most powerful political figures of our time. Who AFAICT has yet to say anything to disavow, criticize, or disassociate himself from this incident.
And ‘both sides are equally guilty’ is exactly that sort of thing: it’s a fundamentally passive, shrug-of-the-shoulders, what-can-you-do sort of resignation.
The proper citizen response is to not care about whether both sides are equally guilty, but to demand that whoever is involved or connected to such mayhem be forced to take responsibility. And then if we really want to do so down the road, we can add up the numbers and see whether both sides were equally responsible, or whether one side was throwing its weight around a lot more than the other.
But I’d be damned surprised if you could find an incident like this that had nearly such a close connection to any Dem that’s anywhere near as much of a household name as DeLay.