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“How About Honesty? How About Telling the Truth?”

Posted by KATHY KATTENBURG in Breaking News, International, Media, Places, Politics, Society.
Nov 3rd, 2009 | Comments

The Syracuse Post-Standard talks to Dede Scozzafava:

“The amount of hate and lies and the deceitfulness,” she said. “I don’t believe that should be the characteristics that define the Republican Party. I think people should be allowed to have discussions and reasonable disagreements. But this was a full frontal assault on me personally and politically, for weeks.”

The phone calls came in to her office, as they had for weeks, from angry people all over the country.

The ringing overwhelmed her three state government staffers. Scozzafava answered a phone herself.

“There was a man from Oregon,” she said. “We talked for half an hour. In the beginning, he just started lecturing me on the Bible, lecturing me on sin, on liberalism. Finally, I said, ‘How about honesty? How about telling the truth?’”

Meanwhile, the first American to win the New York Marathon since 1982 isn’t really American according to some, because he was born in Eritrea — even though he has been a U.S. citizen for 22 years.

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adesnik

Both parties love disenchanted moderates (or alleged moderates) -- on the other side of the aisle.

Here is my question for you, Kathy, and for others who cite Ms. Scozzafava's comments on the nature of the GOP: Did you agree with Joe Lieberman's comments about the nature of the Democratic party after his loss to Ned Lamont in the 2006 primary?

The situations are essentially the same, although Lieberman had won primaries in the past, whereas Scozzafava carries the albatross of being nominated by 11 party officials, not subject to the voters' approval.

dduck12

As Jack Nicholson said: "The truth, you can't take the truth." And, that goes for most of us when we swing to far left or right.

TheMagicalSkyFather

Lieberman is not comparable to this situation but if you want to talk about "chosen by 11 how dare they??" We could dig up an election decided by a few old people on the supreme court. On a more serious note pols lie, its what they do. If they are not lying they are omitting or misrepresenting, this is how they win and this goes for Dede, Hoffman and well every pol I can think of throughout history. Some probably exist that have never been anything but the pillar of honesty but I would guess they only served a single term or were in an extremely comfortable district. As a nation we have only decided that two things are off limits to lie about, intelligence that gets us into a disastrous war and blow jobs, DO NOT lie about those but the rest is and always has been pretty fair game.

kathykattenburg

You have to tell me first what he said.

JeffersonDavis

I see your point about the "a few old people on the supreme court" deciding an election. But I think that is an unfair comparison. That election had already gone through the primary and general elections. In the case of Dede Scozzafava, she was chosen by a committee, with no direct election from the people. If she had been directly chosen, I would have come out screaming about how the GOP screwed her over, just like I did against the DNC when they screwed over Lieberman.

I personally think that both parties need a few more Scozzafavas and Liebermans - and more preferably more Ron Pauls and Russ Fiengolds.

But the case of Lieberman and Scozzafava are nearly identical in this sense.

TheMagicalSkyFather

I was actually just attacking silly with silly since I dont think either is comparable. The DNC did not screw Lieberman his primary voters did and then a few of his supporters after promises that he would follow the Dem party line joined with Repubs and voted him back in. He may win re-election again but I doubt it seriously if he torpedo's healthcare, my guess is he will lose his chair and his next election he will actually fight the DNC, last time the big wigs bowed out and let him fight on a pretty even field. The DNC played nice with Lieberman even though the Dem voters in the state and the net roots fought them on it so if anything this is like the reverse.

adesnik

Generally, it was the same sort of thing about being abandoned by one's own party which had veered to the extreme. I'll have to dig up precise quotes. Should've realizes this wasn't an automatic one.

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