Posted on 11/09/2006 5:24:10 PM PST by sbhitchc
EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS Associated Press JACKSON, Miss. - A Democratic congressman from New York says he wasn't trying to insult Mississippi in published remarks Thursday, but a Republican colleague from Mississippi says Rep. Charles Rangel should apologize to the state.
Rangel, D-N.Y., was quoted in a Thursday article in The New York Times, saying: "Mississippi gets more than their fair share back in federal money, but who the hell wants to live in Mississippi?"
Rep. Chip Pickering, R-Miss., issued a news release criticizing Rangel's words.
"I hope his remarks are not the kind of insults, slander, and defamation that Mississippians will come to expect from the Democrat leadership in Washington, D.C.," Pickering said.
Elbert Garcia, Rangel's press secretary in New York, said Rangel had received calls Thursday about the Mississippi quote.
(Excerpt) Read more at sunherald.com ...
Doubtful her heinous will ever set foot again in Arkansas unless it's for political reasons. Who in the world would befriend these people.
Funny thing about OFFENSE.
It's to be determined by the receiver and not by the deliverer.
Heck, at least in Mississippi, I'd not run into very many crack ho's, aggressive perverts who want to spend some 'quality time' with me, my car would be safer, the rats are smaller, the taxes are not as nefarious, gang bangers wouldn't be shooting up the street corners, the locals haven't an irritating and nasally snort that'll wake the dead.
Besides, Charlie, MS has one thing NY doesn't have: an absence of
Of course he intended offense, or he didn't care. He should just say, "I'm sorry" without the excuse.
I know, I know, and you're probably right. It's just that I am getting so frustrated with this "gotcha" politics. It seems that it's becoming increasingly difficult for any public official to just talk in a straightforward, honest manner anymore, because they are so afraid that somebody, somewhere, is going to be "offended" by what they said. This "gotcha" politics is a tactic, nothing more. The problem is, it's becoming abused, and it's getting to the point where it is starting to stifle honest, simple, sincere talk. People are even loosing their jobs because of it ("macaca").
Everybody at some time or the other makes some little slip that they themselves might consider a joke, but might offend some hyper-sensitive person somewhere, particularly people who are just waiting to be offended. We seem to be losing the ability to distinguish between something that is truly revealing (i.e. John Kerrys' remarks on our troops), and some little slip-of-the-tongue joke by this Rangel idiot. He doesn't want to live in Mississippi, your average person in Mississippi wouldn't want to live in New York, I wouldn't want to live in either one of them, so what? I just believe that this cycle of "gotcha" politics is escalating, and that it is really starting to stifle any honest, sincere political discussion, which is something that we really need right now.
Most people cannot really get up in public and relax enough to speak sincerely and honestly if they have to be tense and paranoid and devote 50% of their mental energy just to PC/CYA. I don't know if it's that people are just abusing a tactic, or they lack discrimination, or people really are getting hyper-sensitive, but either way, I just wish it would start to dial down a bit. As I said, I just think it is making substantive discussions more difficult, which is the one thing that we really really need right now. I know that politics is a rough business, and it's all about words, but it's getting to the point where it is becoming bad for the country as a whole. Anyway, thanks for listening. (/rant)
Exactly,,,you hit the nail right on,,,,
I'm with you. It's called POOP: People Offended by Offended People.
Fight fire with fire huh? And where does it stop? They want to be stupid and juvenile, so we are suppose to out-stupid and out-juvenile them? This whole "gotcha" politics thing is just an outgrowth of political correctness, something which everyone here at FR seems to be against. But what, it's okay when we do it to them? Just keep the spiral going? As far as "grow up" and "fixation on girly-men", well, the problem with that is, it seems like I have to spend spend most of my time answering stupid insults from them....
""Mississippi gets more than their fair share back in federal money, but who the hell wants to live in Mississippi?" "
This will to some degree reinforce the scondescending scalywag image yankees have in the south, but from a yankee's perspective, he is right.
Note - I was born in and lived most of my live in Mississippi, so I probably am qualified to suggest most southerners would prefer New Yawk for yankees to live in versus my home state.
Charley is gonna chair Ways & Means. His little "slip" may very well have been along the same order as Kerry's. Time will tell. Doncha know, Harlem is gonna neeeeeds a lot more funds now & if that comes at the expense of Katrina rebuilding in a worthless place like Mississippi...
Could be, don't know. But still, it just seems like political correctness run amok. It seems like something we should be fighting against, rather than engaging in. It's like profanity; I just don't see any good coming out of it.
Whatever.
Like I said earlier, if there had been a demand for the apology, you'd be correct. There wasn't, so this would have been more along the order of an old school courtesy, not political correctness run amok.
I would perfer socialist "african american" Democrats who were born and lived most of their lives in Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama to stay there than move up here with us "yankees" and tell us what to think.
Can someone please tell my Congressman, black panther Bobby Rush of Georgia, that Illinois doesn't want him?
" Can someone please tell my Congressman, black panther Bobby Rush of Georgia, that Illinois doesn't want him?"
unfortunately carpetbagging congressmen, including hillary, are apparently now an accepted feature of the political scene. not sure if this has always been this way, though hillary, due to the obvious presidential ambition from the start, is the classic case at present.
Oh, no problem. Lefty Charlie can't offend anyone. He is black. He is a dimocrat. He gets a free pass. Everyone move on. We all KNOW Mississippi is still living in the 1950s. Just ask Lefty Charlie.
Great, more Mississippi bashing. This is actually a good thing. It will help keep certain "sophisticated" outsiders away from my beloved Magnolia home state.
Rangel spit on Mississippi...no doubt about it. The timing kinda sucks for Taylor and Thompson what with all of those nice committee appointments being handed down around there. If Taylor and Thompson don't admonish these remarks and demand a decent apology, what does that say about where their loyalties lie? Unless something has changed this morning, Bennie is lying low, but Taylor laughed it off with a few lame comments about animals. To me, their response is the truly insulting part of this.
Hey Get Over It!
I have to say Rangel's remarks don't offend me. They make me ROFLMBO at how much fun it will be to watch the new leadership of the House of Representatives for the next two years. Rangel is a prime example. And just yesterday I heard Nancy Pelosi state that the bad people would leave Iraq when we leave. "They're only there because we are." And then there are the other brain trusts that are set to head committees. Bring out the popcorn!
"U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., said he believes Mississippi will be treated fairly by Rangel and other Democratic leaders."
I don't believe that for one minute.
"As for Pickering's question of whether Democrats could hurt the state, Taylor said: "That's Chip."
That was very tacky.
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