Who was the asshat GOPer who shoved another Congressman

[oustemnow]

on the floor a few years back? I'm trying to remember, because this recent brouhaha over McKinney seems to have the right wing in an uproar. If I recall, it was someone pretty high up in the food chain. DeLay? Santorum, maybe?

Help me out, DUers....

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

1. You mean like when Rep. Preston Brooks caned Senator Sumner in the Senate?

http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/The_Caning_of_Senator_Charles_Sumner.htm

That was in 1856 though. :shrug:

[oustemnow]

2. Haha, similar, but no, more recently

This was within the last few years--definitely in this century--and it involved a pretty high-profile Republican. Damn, I wish I could remember the specifics.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

3. The closest thing I can think of is DeadEye angrily telling Sen. Leahy to

F.U. Pretty incredible when you think about that, and Scalia's chin flicking etc.

When was the last time some prominent Dem told someone to eff themselves in public? :shrug:

[MUAD_DIB]

4. Strom Thurmond tackled a democratic colleague

in the coat room and sat on him while a crucial vote was going on.

[dicknbush]

8. HERE IS A SECTION OF THE SPEECH..YOU SHOULD READ IT IF YOU GET A CHANCE

Such is the crime, and such the criminal, which it is my duty in this debate to expose, and, by the blessing of God, this duty shall be done completely to the end.

But, before entering upon the argument, I must say something of a general character, particularly in response to what has fallen from Senators who have raised themselves to eminence on this floor in championship of human wrongs. I mean the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Butler), and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Douglas), who, though unlike as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, yet, like this couple, sally forth together in the same adventure. I regret much to miss the elder Senator from his seat; but the cause, against which he has run a tilt, with such activity of animosity, demands that the opportunity of exposing him should not be lost; and it is for the cause that I speak. The Senator from South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous knight, with sentimcuts of honor and courage. Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight I mean the harlot, Slavery. For her, his tongue is always profuse in words. Let her be impeached in character, or any proposition made to shut her out from the extension of her wantonness, and no extravagance of manner or hardihood of assertion is then too great for this Senator. The frenzy of Don Quixote, in behalf of his wench, Dulcinea del Toboso, is all surpassed. The asserted rights of Slavery, which shock equality of all kinds, are cloaked by a fantastic claim of equality. If the slave States cannot enjoy what, in mockery of the great fathers of the Republic, he misnames equality under the Constitution in other words, the full power in the National Territories to compel fellowmen to unpaid toil, to separate husband and wife, and to sell little children at the auction block then, sir, the chivalric Senator will conduct the State of South Carolina out of the Union! Heroic knight ! Exalted Senator! A second Moses come for a second exodus!

[dicknbush]

10. Here is the entire Sumner speech..

Interesting reading and very interesting to read the style of giving a speech from that day. It is sort of poetic in a way.

http://www.iath.virginia.edu/seminar/unit4/sumner.html

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

11. You mean politicians used to be literate, and passionate about

important things? And articulate in their writing and speech? And not take pride in being a mumbling, smirking idjit mouthing platitudes?

You don't say.

Reading any speech of Lincoln, Fredrick Douglass etc. really makes you weep for what politics in this country has become. (Or a Gore or Kerry op/ed for that matter.)

[no_hypocrisy]

15. You beat me to it. That was the first free association I had when I read

the original post. Sumner was never the same after that attack.

[Debs]

5. I remember when

B1 Bob Dornan grabbed and shoved another congressman on the floor and challenged him to a fight, is THAT what you were thinking of it was about 8 or 10 years ago

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

6. The only thing that would have made that story sweet is if he'd been

immediately thrashed after making that challenge.

[oustemnow]

12. No, it wasn't Dornan

But it was someone similar to his stature. This was more recent than 8 or 10 years ago; it was within the last few years. Damn, I wish I could remember who it was. At the time, I remember thinking, "Wow, this is what it's come down to; turning the legislature into a literal shoving match." As I recall, it was between the time Chimpy was installed and the run-up to the latest Iraq skirmish.

[Autonomy]

7. There was a Dem Congressman who threatened

a Repug on the House floor a few years ago when the Repugs took a vote while the entire Dem party was in chambers or something. I don't remember the issue, but it was pretty important I think. This was just around when the Repug Congress was starting to go fascist-putsch-y.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

9. Without any names it would be hard to verify your story.

[Autonomy]

13. Pete Stark vs. Bill Thomas

Partisan brawl stops House in its tracks
Cops called, invective flies on Capitol Hill
- Marc Sandalow and Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Saturday, July 19, 2003


Washington -- Was it Bakersfield Rep. Bill Thomas' famous temper? Or was it Fremont Rep. Pete Stark's famous mouth?

The House came to a standstill Friday afternoon as agitated lawmakers put aside affairs of state to debate exactly why police officers had been summoned by Republicans to the stately hearing room of the Ways and Means Committee earlier in the day.

Angry Democrats said it was because Thomas, the short-fused Republican chairman, didn't want Democrats to meet in the committee's anteroom and flaunted his power by ordering them out. They called it "tyranny," a "police state" and "un-American," and rushed a resolution to the House floor to condemn Thomas' behavior and rescind the committee's vote on a pension bill.

Republicans said it was because Stark, the bombastic Democrat who had been left behind as party's lone representative in the hearing room, exploded into a juvenile, profanity-ridden tirade, ridiculing Thomas' intellect, calling a Colorado Republican a "fruitcake" and then challenging him to a fight.

More: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/07/19/HOUSE.TMP&type=printable

[zbdent]

16. The threat was

from a Dem in his 70s saying, essentially, "You're a creampuff. Why don't you come over here and make me?"

and the fit Repuke in his 50s pissed himself and called the cops, complaining that he was being threatened . . . I just would like to remember the names myself.


on edit:

Damn, I saw that this was just answered . . . but this is the essence of the matter.

[Autonomy]

14. More from the Stark Incident....

Democrats said their frustrations began two minutes before midnight on Thursday, when they were handed a 90-page GOP substitute for a 400-plus page pension reform measure and were told they would be asked to vote on it Friday morning.

When the committee convened, Democrats called for the substitute to be read in its entirety as a way to stall for time. They then left Stark -- a 30-year veteran of Congress -- as their sole representative in the committee room, as they huddled in a room known as the library, next to the hearing room.

Within minutes, an aide to Thomas approached New York Rep. Charles Rangel, the top ranking committee Democrat, and told him that the chairman wanted them out of the library. Rangel told him no. Moments later, a Capitol police officer arrived and ordered Rangel to leave. He refused. That prompted a call to the House sergeant at arms, who also failed to get Rangel and his Democratic colleagues to leave.

Meanwhile, in the committee room, Stark was raising doubts that the full text of the measure was actually being read.

"Its eloquence overwhelms me, Mr. Chairman," he told Thomas, "just like your intellect does."

The complaints prompted Rep. Scott McInnis, R-Colo., to tell Stark to "shut up."

"Oh, you think you are big enough to make me," Stark responded, according to witnesses. "You little wimp. I said come over here and make me. I dare you. You are a little fruitcake. You are a little fruitcake. I said you are a fruitcake."

Thomas then ordered the reading to be suspended, a common practice, asked whether there were objections and immediately dropped his gavel.

"I object," said Stark.

"Too late," Thomas responded, according to the transcript. One witness said Stark then leveled a string of obscenities at Thomas, which were not recorded in the transcript. Stark denied it, saying he had called Thomas only a "fascist."

[htuttle]

17. Tom Delay vs David Obey (D-WI)

I can't recall the year, though. (Just looked it up. It was 1997).

Also, I think there was a Duke Cunningham vs Jim Moran bout in '95 or so.