Wanda Baucus, hypocrite!

The BBQ Pit
#1

Here we have a rather lengthy and high-minded anti-war rant by the wife of Montana senator Max Baucus, Dem-Montana. She is a peacenik who appears even to think even Saddam is just misunderstood, and is so upset by the situation in Iraq (and what she perceives as the moral turpitude of the U.S.) that she can’t sleep at night:

“Is that so unusual – being for peace? I thought we all wanted peace,” Wanda Baucus, the senator’s wife of 20 years, told us yesterday. She said it was she, not her husband, who put up the sign.

“I want the people in Iraq to have peace – the people whose lives are in turmoil because of the war, the children, their mothers, the farmers, the grandmothers and even the camels that are out grazing,” said the 54-year-old Baucus, an anthropologist who has taught at Harvard as well as a painter who regularly visits the south of France.

While Isaac, her bichon frise, barked in the background, Baucus confided that she has been watching television with growing distress and having trouble sleeping – though she’s not worried about the prospect of terrorism in the United States. “I never think about it,” she said.

“I don’t think we have any business being in a preemptive war against Iraq,” she said. “Anytime you drop bombs, there are going to be a lot of innocent people hurt. A billion Muslims all over the world are in pain to see their brothers losing their homes and their families losing the stability of their civilization.”

She added: “Baghdad is where the beginning of civilization occurred, literally where the wheel was invented, where the very first city was built, where writing began, and it has a very deep and profoundly beautiful history – which we should never take lightly, no matter who the existing president is.”

Even if it’s Saddam? “I think he is very proud of the history of his country. I think it’s we Americans who don’t know the facts about what anthropologists call ‘the cradle of civilization.’ When we watch the bombing on television, we really don’t seem to understand or appreciate that some of these places are sacred. . . . I disagree with those who say that Saddam Hussein doesn’t think about this. He cares about these places and their people.”

She continued: “I don’t think American lives are threatened by him. There is no evidence of weapons of mass destruction and we have no right to make a preemptive strike on another country and try to assassinate its leader. We have no right legally or morally. We are way out of line.”

And thanks to the Salt Lake Tribune, here we have her in action in day-to-day life:

"The wife of Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., was accused on Wednesday of hitting a woman in a dispute over mulch at a garden center, police said.

Baucus apparently was upset she did not get help loading the mulch into her car while the other woman was being assisted, a police spokesman said. Witnesses told police that Baucus put a bag of mulch behind the woman’s car, preventing her from leaving the store, and that after the exchanging words, allegedly struck the woman several times, police said."

She blocks someone’s car so the woman can’t leave, and then (according to other reports I’ve heard on t.v.) she throws mulch from another bag into this woman’s car, and then leans inside and punches this lady several times in the face and head!

All because the other lady got waited on before she did!

I love it when high-minded liberals, who are so intent on telling everyone else how to behave and who are so contemptuous of others who don’t share their pacifistic views and moral definition, show that they not only don’t practice what they preach but that their behavior can be much *worse * than that of those they so smugly condemn.

Hypocritical, much?

This only goes to show a favorite theory of mine which is that we (humans, that is) are all the same, only at different ends of the scale. It does seem however, that angry vehemence is much more in evidence from the left these days than from the right, as is evinced by the likes of Michael Moore, Streisand, Al Franken, et. al., just to name a few of the more well-known examples. They, however, feel their outrage is justified because they are on the side of righteousness…exactly the same way the other side feels about themselves.

#2

That’s your rant? Some lady in Montana went off, and you rant about it? :confused:

#3

Not just some lady! This is a U.S. Senator’s wife and avowed peacenik who preaches to any and everyone she can about how violence is wrong, and then beats the crap out of some poor woman because the other woman got help loading her car first.

I don’t know about my post being a rant, an expression of irony and disgust would probably be a better description of it.

#4

You seriously think a stupid fight over mulch in which one woman was injured (wrongly so, of course) is worse than the situation in Iraq, with thousands dead and a country laid to waste? :eek:

#5

I’m with you here, Starving Artist. If she’s going to make herself into public figure, she needs to learn how to behave in public.

Either that, or she could just shut the hell up.

#6

I am not going to say that you don’t have a certain point here. I will note that I find it rather sad how much glee we all seem to take in the shortcomings and failures the self-proclaimed spokespeople for either side of the fence.

#7

Truly unbelieveable, but in what way does this impugn all liberals? Or did I misunderstand?

#8

What’s the beef? A person can wish for peace upon a land of people who is currently under attack and still have an angry outburst. Yes, she should adhere to a level of decorum as the wife of a senator. No, she should not lash out and physically injure a citizen over a petty matter. But all of this amounts to exactly bubkis when you put it side-by-side with her anti-war opinions.

THis “argument”, is as stupid as those who hold President Bush responsible for his daughters drug and alcohol activity 2000 miles away at college. It serves no purpose-not even to advance your own cause, which is to whine about the left.

Sam

#9

Can you show me where I even *implied * that it was worse? (Is this what is meant by a “straw man,” a term I see thrown about a lot here?)

#10

No, this seems like more of the same. Both the Right and the Left are doing it. You see, if either side admits that their loyal opposition may have a valid point about anything, or if they for even a moment stop painting each other with a ridiculously broad brush then the “loose”. Far easier to just pick out extreme examples and hold them up as the norm.

#11

Sure:

That reads to me like you feel that not only does this woman’s behavior qualifiy as hypocritical, but also as much worse than that which she is condemning (the situation in Iraq). That’s why I quoted it in my first response, see. So you’d know what my question was based on.

#12

I understand where you’re coming from, it’s just that this glee is somewhat a natural response to someone who had held their position up as being superior to thinking of certain others, and then turns around and behaves in a way worse than most of those on the other side would ever even think of doing.

I think you did. I’m sure there are some on the liberal side who wouldn’t resort to violence under any provocation, and others who are in between.

Exactly! I think you are misunderstanding my point. What I’m saying is that people are basically all the same, only at different ends of whatever scale is in dispute. However, it’s those on the left that generally hold themselves up as being above these types of human emotion and portray it as being neanderthal-like, when in fact they are as likely to indulge in it as anyone.

In other words, don’t tell me your way of thinking is more evolved and superior to mine and then go out and behave in a way much worse than I would ever do.

I thought the quotes were for emphasis, similar to italics. But I see what you mean and how my post could appear to be saying that. When I said her behavior was worse than that of those she condemned, I was speaking of her obvious condescension toward those who appear to favor violence, while she herself goes out and actually engages in it.

And by the way, I imagine we’d be having quite a different discourse if it had been Jeb Bush’s or Newt Gingrich’s wife who did this. Just another example of everyone being the same. This is actually the crux of my post. In other words, those on the left who so often feel they have the moral high ground over those on the more primitive and less evolved right are really no better. We’re all the same, so let’s argue facts and strategy and fairness without all the high-minded hypocrisy intended to try to belittle the other side into compliance by holding yourself up to be morally and intellectually superior.

#13

OK, I’ll go with that. But somehow you seem to imply that it is only liberals who claim the moral highground. Surely you can see the folly of that position. As evidence, I give you one Jim Bakker. Should I claim that because of him, all conservatives are moral hypocrits? Or, as you did above, allow that maybe there are some conservatives who aren’t exactly like Bakker? Would that be magnanimous of me?

And would it be unfair to state that it’s entirely possible to hold a position that one sees as moral, and yet still act like an asshole? Would it also be unfair to state that others might hold the same opinion of said asshole without themselves being assholes?

Or do you hold that all liberals are married to senators from Montana?

#14

Uh, Starving?

“Peacenik” is as foolish a word as “Bushista”. They both make their user look small-minded.

Just trying to help.

#15

And as outdated macrame vests.

#16

I don’t want to hijack this thread, but I just want to say that I’m getting mighty sick and tired of of people* throwing connections to France around to impugn liberals. It’s so obvious here that there’s no reason to mention France except for that purpose. :rolleyes:

*“people” in this case being the journalist, not Starving Artist.

#17

Starving Artist might have a point if it was Senator Baucus himself who made the statement. But since it’s his wife – an unelected, unofficial, private citizen – this is just scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel-for-muck-to-smear-with desperation.

This would be just as stupid as saying George W. Bush should be imprisoned because his wife’s hairdresser’s cousin’s son-in-law ran over someone with a car while drinking and driving. :dubious:

#18

Not to mention being college educated!

#19

You do have a point…up to a point, that is. I’ve noticed that stereotyping is much riviled around here, but I’d like to point out that you may be engaging in a bit of it yourself. Bakker, and the “religious right” in general, contrary to what the media and certain politicians would have you believe, make up only a relatively small part of the right’s politcal spectrum. Most conservatives, I believe, probably believe in God but they aren’t out evangelizing about it and stirring things up like is generally thought of as the religious right. Their belief is rather benign in terms of who they’re going to vote for. I know a great many conservatives who have no problem with gay people, other races, women being treated fairly and equitably, etc. I happen to be one myself.

Of course! Happens all the time.

I would say that depends. If the person is an elitist who regards him/herself as being morally and intellectually superior to the other side rather than seeing that we’re all the same and that we need to work as I said above from a foundation of fact, strategy and fairness, then I would say yes.

Certainly not…it’s just that today one of the more objectionable ones is.

I know. At the time I posted it I really didn’t anticipate so many civilized and sincere responses. I tripped over it myself when I was composing the post and tried to come up with an alternative, but I confess I just went with expediency to save some time. My apologies.

“Peacenik” is as foolish a word as “Bushista”. They both make their user look small-minded.

Thank you.

#20

I don’t think that was the intention. I think the author was just trying to give a more well-rounded picture of the woman. Unless, of course, calling her a Harvard professor and a painter also impugns liberals.

Or was I whooshed?