Brooks is behind Jackie on the right.
Posted on 12/05/2012 7:53:17 AM PST by Borges
Tuesday night, Jack Brooks died in Texas after experiencing a sudden illness; he was 89. Brooks spent 42 years in Congress and was part of the motorcade in Dallas when JFK was assassinated. Jack Brooks would have been 90-years-old on December 18.
Brooks died at the Baptist Hospital of Beaumont in Texas and was surrounding by family.
A good-old-country-boy from Texas, Brooks once said:
I'm just like old man Rayburn. Just a Democrat, no prefix or suffix.
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
He was one of the old guard democrats defeated in ‘94. Good riddance!
Party of the Ronnie Earl/Jim Hightower Texas Wingnut Leftist Brigade, I believe.
Never heard of him.
ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG....
That's something you don't hear too often.
Here's something else you don't hear too often: "Brooks died at the Baptist Hospital of Beaumont in Texas and was surrounding by family."
When I was a kid Jack Brooks sat in our house and was trying to convince my old man LBJ's Great Society was a good idea.
After a long argument, Brooks finally admitted the Great Society was never intended to get anyone out of poverty but was intended to lock blacks into poverty so they would be cheap farm labor.
The nastiness on this thread is worthy of DU.
Mr. Brooks was a WWII vet, served as a Marine in the South Pacific. Member of the NRA.
RIP
I’m from Beaumont and certainly knew of Jack Brooks.
He was just a part of the scenery down there—sort of like being elected for life.
Beaumont and surrounding areas were made up of mostly union workers-—in the oilfields, paper mills, etc. I had to actually leave Beaumont before I realized that you can’t actually see air. Pollution was a way of life.
We had the oil refineries and chemical plants on one side of town, and the Evadale paper mill on the other. (If you’ve never smelled the fumes from a paper mill, you haven’t lived—LOL!)
It has, of course, been cleaned up greatly by now—but it’s still a great place to be FROM, if you get my drift. (Just kidding—I had a wonderful childhood growing up in Beaumont.) I don’t have much reason to go back these days, as my parents have been long gone, and even most of my classmates at dear old French High School are in the graveyard, too.
That was the class of 1955, btw.
An old line LBJ/Sam Rayburn ‘rat, ‘nuff said.
Jack Brooks was probably the most famous casualty of the 94’ Congressional tidal wave elections that brought in the Republican majority other than Speaker of the House Tom Foley.
Brooks represented East Texas so there were many, many hunters and fishermen in his district. He always won by large majorities so he thought it was safe for him to vote for the Brady Gun Bill.
His opponent was Republican Steve Stockman who literally ran his campaign out of his garage.
Apparently Brooks ran some polls and saw he was in trouble, so he ran an awful campaign commercial of a Space Shuttle being launched and him craning up his old turkey neck to watch it.
But you can’t put stuff like this in an obituary.
L!...i rem: Texas (aggie)Decades ago, my Dad introduced me to him at a dinner party once. I was working as congressional drone on the Hill, and I'll never forget what he said to me as he was shaking my hand.
"I wouldn't fire but about half of them."
Prior to entering Congress in 1952, he famously passed the hat at a civic club in Beaumont to raise enough money to purchase two sport coats. At the conclusion of his congressional career, he was among the most wealthy members of congress, all on a congressman’s salary.
As to his legacy, he did manage to steer an inordinate amount of pork into his district over the decades, but otherwise was instrumental in causing the massive expansion of the already bloated bureaucracy.
He made an ass of himself during his inquisition of Oliver North during the Iran Contra hearings, at one point revealing what had been highly sensitive and classified intelligence information.
A mixed legacy at best. The people of southeast Texas did themselves a favor by retiring him in 1994. They were also wise in defeating one of his younger disciples (Nick Lampson) for the third time this year.
After growing up in Beaumont back in the 1960’s,
I didn’t trust air that I couldn’t see.
When I left Beaumont, I had to start smoking.
Jack was not beloved by many thinking Texans. He was one of the Yeller Dog Dems that gave us LBJ and the downward slide of America into our now bamaClaus dire straits.
Sad he has been wasting our air. Happy the shitbird is gone.
My old man tried to tell Brooks it wasn't going to work that way, that LBJ's Great Society would create a permanent underclass not just for blacks but also whites, but Brooks would have none of it.
After that my old man, an FDR democrat, never voter for another dem for president.
I did, too! All that unpolluted air made me dizzy——LOL!
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