Former Republican Senator: The GOP Presidential Field Is ‘Embarrassing’

[Tx4obama]

Former Republican Senator: The GOP Presidential Field Is ‘Embarrassing’

Republican John Danforth, who served as a senator from Missouri for nearly 20 years and later as George W. Bush’s ambassador the United Nations, is not happy with the slate of Republican presidential candidates. “I’ve been watching some of these Republican debates and they’re just terrible. Terrible,” he told KTRS in St. Louis yesterday. “It’s embarrassing for me as a Republican to watch this stuff,” he added, calling out audiences for applauding the candidates’ morbid boastings. Via Fired Up Missouri:

DANFORTH: What have been the big applause lines in these debates? Well, a statement that the governor of Texas is responsible for killing 234 people on death row. Or that we favor torture. Or that we’re creating a fence on the Mexican border that electrocutes people when they try to cross it. Or when people show up at the emergency room at hospitals and they’re not insured don’t treat them. And that, I mean these are the big applause lines, people just hoop and holler when they hear all that. ...

It doesn’t have anything to do with the republican party that I was a part of. This is just totally different. And all of these people who are saying this, y’know, and claiming that, y’know, they’re for all this stuff, they also sort of ostentatiously say, “Oh, we’re very religious people. We really, we’re just very pious, Christian people.” They were for torture, and electrocution of the people on along the border and all of that. That doesn’t have anything to do with, is contrary to the Christianity that I understand.

SNIP

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/12/01/380148/john-danforth-slams-gop-field/


And we still have almost a year to go before the GOP circus is over.
:popcorn:

[polichick]

1. Nice to know there are a few Republicans who are still in touch with reality!

[opihimoimoi]

2. Embarrassing,,,,but the Baggers still hold Power in the House....the circus continues unabated

[Enrique]

3. the stuff about Christianity is especially sweet

given that Danforth is an Episcopalian priest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Danforth

[Submariner]

4. Clarence Thomas's mentor speaks

f*ck him.

[Carolina]

8. exactly my thoughts!

[JHB]

5. Would have been nice if he'd figured this out BEFORE giviing us Clarence Thomas

[bluestateguy]

6. They're always so much more honest after they leave office

at which point they are pretty much worthless anyway.

Retired military generals are the same way.

[Lucky Luciano]

7. Generals have to be that way if I am not mistaken. nt

[JHB]

9. He's not being all THAT honest. Or maybe I missed the part...

...where he owns up to playing a part in creating the very thing he's complaining about now.

He was on the side of the people pushing for all the things that made the Republican Party the bloodthirsty looney-bin it is today.

Back when it could have mattered, he did not take a look down the road and say "this way lies madness". To merely shake his head now and "tsk tsk" the current crop from the safety of retirement is just as much bad action as what he did to help create it.

[Faryn Balyncd]

10. I think Danforth's epiphany came during his several months as U.N. ambassador in 2004...

...as the Cheney/Bolton faction consolidated their absolute control. Danforth has never talked candidly about the the foreign policy issues that led to his quick decision that he wanted to spend more time with his wife, and his replacement by the most vile U.N ambassador in history, John Bolton.

Danforth has repeatedly and openly vented his anger at the religious right, but I would suppose there is a larger personal story he hasn't been public about.... involving a moral crisis between his values and his position as U. N. ambassador. I think he came to realize that American foreign policy as it evolved and became ossified in 2004 was fundamentally at odds with his moral values.

The exit of Colin Powell and John Danforth from Bush foreign policy in 2004 sealed the permanent control of the Republican Party by the rabies infected.

[MjolnirTime]

11. I feel a Blue Tide rolling in!

[Tarheel_Dem]

12. Mr. Danforth, I couldn't agree more!

:hi: