Posted on 09/11/2010 2:34:18 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The nonpartisan City Club Missoula became a seminar in conservative-bashing Friday at noon, with a pioneering female politician taking swings at another visiting the Garden City this weekend: Sarah Palin.
Pat Schroeder, the 11-term Democratic congresswoman from Colorado, got a rousting round of chuckles from a packed room at the Holiday Inn Parkside, taking credit for opening doors to women in the political realm but lamenting that "you can't control who goes through them."
"I'm leaving for Bozeman this afternoon because I don't think Missoula is big enough for both Sarah and I," said Schroeder, City Club Missoula's guest speaker and a friend and former colleague to nine-term Montana congressman Pat Williams.
Williams introduced Schroeder to the audience made up mainly of civic, business, arts and education leaders in Missoula. City Club Missoula, a nonprofit group, was formed as a roundtable to "inform and inspire citizens on issues vital to the Missoula area," according to its bylaws.
Williams described Schroeder as "outspoken" and "clever," a politician who was successful "because she was smart, she was aggressive and she believed she could do anything that any other citizen could do."
Schroeder served in the House of Representatives from 1973 to 1997, and was the first woman to sit on the House Armed Services Committee.
In her years, she wrote numerous laws, including the Family and Medical Leave Act, and was a force in shrinking defense spending during the post-Vietnam era. She also coined the phrase "the Teflon president" to describe Ronald Reagan.
Now a publisher, Schroeder has also been a lawyer and schoolteacher, and provided free legal counsel to Planned Parenthood.
On Friday, Schroeder addressed the present, calling the political climate "a horror show" and "a screaming match" whose main casualty is civility.
"You can't learn anything when people are yelling at each other," she said.
Business interests have all but taken over American politics, she said, and the national debate has become an echo chamber for cynics.
"The word ‘cynic' is a Greek word, and its root means ‘yapping dog,' " she said. "Greece was also a democracy and it fell. It fell because there were so many yapping dogs."
She also targeted "moneyed speech" as being an anathema to honest debate, decrying the recent Supreme Court decision that ruled the government cannot limit corporate spending for political broadcasts.
"So now you can just fire-hose money wherever you want, no holds barred," she said.
***
Schroeder took aim at military spending as well, using America's 12 aircraft carriers as examples of waste.
"When is the last time they were used?" she asked. "They're just steaming around showing the flag."
Conservatives who back big military budgets but want small government, she said, are guilty "of the biggest fraud in the world."
Schroeder opened the floor to audience questions, and fielded one from Missoula County Public Schools Superintendent Alex Apostle, who wanted to know her thoughts on "public schools and America's destiny."
Schroeder answered that public schools are being "destroyed" by ideas like education vouchers for private schools and the development of charter schools.
"The voucher group has taken over, and taken over a lot of the mindset," she said.
That led her to a bigger point about American culture, and what she calls the growth of the philosophy "get what you can while you can and then sit on your can."
"People all want to drive great, big, fancy Lexuses, and they want to live in gated communities, and they want to send their kids to private schools and buy a new set of golf clubs," she said.
How dare those peons strive to get what we already have, anotherwords...
Schroeder took aim at military spending as well, using America's 12 aircraft carriers as examples of waste.
"When is the last time they were used?" she asked. "They're just steaming around showing the flag."
Ummm, to save lives in Haiti, after the Tsunami and keep the sealanes open?
Palin Power. The ability to Repel Liberals...
“you can’t control who goes through them.”
There’s the Freudian slip again; CONTROL!!!!!
I was wondering what Patsy has been up to when she’s not working in the kitchen make Jello. She sounds like the same old tired ass liberal Patsy.
She tried to chew me out one time when I made a remark near her about a female member of our security detail that was yappin away endlessly ...... I told a member of my team....doesn’t she ever shut up ?
Crazy Patty went off saying .....I will never shut up .
I turned an told her I wasn’t speaking to her or about her an why she felt she was talking to much when she was standing alone.
We laughed at her an she stomped off....pissed off bad.
She is nuts.
She needs to lay off the dog food.
No one knows if Sarah is planning to run for president, or any office in the future. But she is certainly very clever in allowing herself all the exposure now, long before there is any need to announce any desire for office.
Sarah is letting herself be a target and all those who want to take aim are giving their best shot. Eventually, their attempts become either ridiculous or simply ignored. But, soon all will have run out of ammunition.
Once they have said all they can say to fault her, or told all the lies they can make up, there will not be much left to use against her. The hatred can only last so long...and people's tolerance ends for stories that prove to be fabricated or simply vulgar. In two years, what more will be left to say?
Yep....LOL !
She’s whacked ....
Patsy Shrew-der. The womyn running for President that took a lap around the USA and then burst into tears and dropped out because no one was taking her seriously.
Isn’t Patsy the woman who would rather we tell her mother she was a prostitute than tell her the truth that she was a politician which is lower than a prostitute?
She is the one who wanted to retrain “cattle guards” that were no longer needed.
LOL ... yep .. a dyed-in-the-bloomers, hateful,
wicked lib hag.
As president of the american publisher’s
association, I wouldn’t doubt the crap
she’s seen to it that’s inserted in the
history textbooks fed to unsuspecting,
young minds.
http://www.publishers.org/main/AboutAAP/Board/about_Board_01_01.htm
Textbooks
http://www.picosearch.com/cgi-bin/ts.pl?index=429494&query=textbooks&opt=ANY
When the Democrats get their asses kicked in November, I don't want to hear any of this crap about "healing" and "now Republicans need to work together with us." Horse vomit. I want the entire progressive agenda completely destroyed.
Thank you for that sober summary.
The Palin bashing has been so depressing - but you have presented a brilliant war game.
I can’t believe she is still alive, and I am appalled she is still flapping her gums. Age definitely didn’t bring her wisdom.
And how many people wanted you to be president, Patricia old thing?
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