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.
In a rational world that audience would have dragged her out of that room by her feet, strapped her to a rail, and run her nasty, arrogant, ass out of town on it.
Instead the "non-partisan" crowd sat there and lapped it up like dogs to vomit. I'll bet she got lots and lots of polite applause from those skin jobs, too.
Patty is just pissed she never made it to the nomination of VP of her party. It was funny how Ferraro was at least respectful to Sarah in the beginning THEN the powers to be set her straight and she went in to full PDS mode. It was so bad Fox had to dumped her.
Haha haha haha.
I had completely forgotten the hag ran for president.
No wonder she’s so jealous of beautiful Sarah.
What a horrid way to go through life. So bitter.
Yeah, I remember Patty in the House Chamber. Thing is, a yapping dog is precisely what she is, and contributory to the ad hominem school of politics as much as anyone we might think of. I don't need to say more, since the list of her "accomplishments" pretty much sums it up.
Except, if Governor Palin has Patty all riled up, Sarah must be doing something right. There's no longer any room at the table for her, or us. One or both, but not either. And that intolerance started with her crowd.
Oh, I didn’t Geraldine has been dumped by FNC. Bashed Sarah one time too many did she? Did Roger Ailes terminate her?
Or crying their eyes out 'cause they're not tough enough to run for president.
If my indicators are correct, that happens in either November this year due to stolen elections, or January 2011 due to an external catastrophe.
But either way, we don't have long to wait.
I don’t know if she was official dumped but her appears have been nonexistent for over a year now.
I think Fox gave her one last chance not too long ago and was a razing, foaming at the mouth lunatic that for sure.
Keep your eye on these creeps during the lame duck Congressional session, too. There's no end to the mischief they'll be trying to ram through.
That cow is still alive?
I’d forgotten why I thought Shroeder was an idiot.
Don’t feel too bad. Here in Wisconsin we have Tammy Baldwin from Madison sitting in congress. She’s probably nuttier than Schroeder.
Thank you for that, libertymaker!
You are so right and you’ve lifted my spirits!
November is just around the corner. Woo-Hoo!!
She must be one of those people who is brilliant because she’s a liberal, and for no other reason.
feh... go back to sleep you stooopid cow you...
Is that scab still alive? She was a real piece of sh!t 15 years ago.
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