Purple heart band-aids, Zell Miller (D-Phillip
Morris), Conan the Deceiver's historical
hallucinations (i.e. Socialist tanks in Austria, and a
Nixon-Humphrey debate), former NYC Mayor Rudy
Ghouliani's bizarre rememberance about saying "Thank
God, George Bush is President" as humab beings came
hurtling from the upper floors of the WTC on
9/11(either a shameful lie or an insight into his
cravenness), and the sliming of world-reknown
humanitarian philanthropist George Soros as a drug
profiteer...Here are two more RNC-related stories for
the archives...Is this what democracy looks like?
Jonathan Kaplan, The Hill: George Soros, the
billionaire financier who has given millions of
dollars to liberal and Democratic-leaning advocacy
groups, launched a blistering counterattack on Speaker
J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) yesterday, saying he should
be “ashamed” of allegations he made Sunday.
Hastert had suggested that Soros’s wealth came from
criminals, and in a letter Soros challenged the
Speaker to substantiate his claims or publicly
apologize.
In a tartly worded demand faxed to Hastert, Soros
wrote: “Your recent comments implying that I am
receiving funds from drug cartels are not only untrue,
but also deeply offensive. You do a discredit to
yourself and to the dignity of your office by engaging
in these dishonest smear tactics. You should be
ashamed.
“I must respectfully insist that you either
substantiate these claims — which you cannot do
because they are false — or publicly apologize for
attempting to defame my character and damage my
reputation.”
The spat began in an interview on Fox News with anchor
Chris Wallace, in which Hastert said, “You know, I
don’t know where George Soros gets his money. I don’t
know where — if it comes overseas or from drug groups
or where it comes from. …”
Asked if Soros had earned money from drug cartels,
Hastert added, “Well, that’s what he’s been for a
number years — George Soros has been for legalizing
drugs in this country. So, I mean, he’s got a lot of
ancillary interests out there. … I’m saying I don’t
know where groups — could be people who support this
type of thing. I’m saying we don’t know.”
Janet Hook, Los Angeles Times: McCain (R-Ariz.) said
the keynote address by Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga.) could
prove as controversial as a speech by Pat Buchanan at
the 1992 GOP convention in Houston.
"I think it backfires," McCain said of Miller's
rhetorical assault on Kerry. He added that it "makes
Buchanan's speech … look milquetoast."
McCain made his comments to reporters at a party
he held after the convention's Wednesday session.
Buchanan's speech — in which he declared a
"cultural war" was underway in America — was thought
by many Republicans to have hurt the reelection bid of
Bush's father, then-President George H.W. Bush. The
elder Bush lost the November vote to Democrat Bill
Clinton.
Restore the Timline, Show Up for Democracy in 2004:
Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.hillnews.com/news/090104/soros.aspx
Soros blasts Hastert over drug allegation
Billionaire demands public apology from the House
Speaker
By Jonathan E. Kaplan
George Soros, the billionaire financier who has given
millions of dollars to liberal and Democratic-leaning
advocacy groups, launched a blistering counterattack
on Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) yesterday,
saying he should be “ashamed” of allegations he made
Sunday.
Hastert had suggested that Soros’s wealth came from
criminals, and in a letter Soros challenged the
Speaker to substantiate his claims or publicly
apologize.
In a tartly worded demand faxed to Hastert, Soros
wrote: “Your recent comments implying that I am
receiving funds from drug cartels are not only untrue,
but also deeply offensive. You do a discredit to
yourself and to the dignity of your office by engaging
in these dishonest smear tactics. You should be
ashamed.
FILE PHOTO
Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“I must respectfully insist that you either
substantiate these claims — which you cannot do
because they are false — or publicly apologize for
attempting to defame my character and damage my
reputation.”
The spat began in an interview on Fox News with anchor
Chris Wallace, in which Hastert said, “You know, I
don’t know where George Soros gets his money. I don’t
know where — if it comes overseas or from drug groups
or where it comes from. …”
Asked if Soros had earned money from drug cartels,
Hastert added, “Well, that’s what he’s been for a
number years — George Soros has been for legalizing
drugs in this country. So, I mean, he’s got a lot of
ancillary interests out there. … I’m saying I don’t
know where groups — could be people who support this
type of thing. I’m saying we don’t know.”
Soros, a Hungarian Jewish immigrant, earned billions
from investments and currency speculation. In 1992, he
bet $10 billion that the British central bank would
devalue the pound. The gamble paid off and Soros
earned $650 million that year. Soros Fund Management
LLC was hammered in the late 1990s and Soros has since
retired, although he remains chairman.
In 1993, he started the Open Society Institute, which
promotes democracy in Eastern Europe and around the
world. He began funding programs to reform the U.S.
justice system several years later. As part of that
effort, he has funded marijuana-legalization
referendums in California and Arizona. Besides the
Open Society Institute, Soros is also a major
contributor to the International Crisis Group, a
Brussels-based operation that monitors violence in
global hot spots.
But he is most widely known in this election season as
a big contributor to MoveOn.org, the Center for
American Progress, a Democratic think tank, and
America Coming Together, a so-called 527 political
outfit that is exempt from limits on campaign
contributions.
John Feehery, a spokesman for Hastert, said, “George
Soros has an agenda. He supports the legalization of
drugs, and the statement stands. [Hastert] has been
fighting Soros on this for years because it is a
character flaw. The Speaker thinks legalizing drugs is
wrong.”
Soros was unavailable for comment.
Documents filed with the Securities and Exchange
Commission (SEC) say that no company official in
Soros’s investment fund is involved in a criminal
proceeding or a party to a civil proceeding.
Feehery cited no evidence and would not comment on
whether Hastert would ask law enforcement to
investigate.
Soros told The Washington Post last year: “America,
under Bush, is a danger to the world. … And I’m
willing to put my money where my mouth is.”
Conservatives have sought to discredit Soros by
attacking his foreign and Jewish roots and his support
of liberal causes, and by saying that his currency
speculation actually hurt the very people he claims to
want to help.
“No other single person represents the symbol and the
substance of globalism more than this Hungarian-born
descendant of Shylock. He is the embodiment of the
Merchant from Venice,” wrote GOPAC, an organization
that helps elect GOP candidates, on its website last
year.
In William Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice,” Shylock
was the Jewish banker whose venality would not stop
him from cutting human flesh to repay loans.
Tony Blankley, the editorial-page editor of The
Washington Times, said Soros is “a robber baron, he’s
a pirate capitalist, and he’s a reckless man” in an
interview on Fox
News.
Democrats were quick to criticize Hastert’s latest
suggestion. “That’s totally absurd. It fits a pattern
of simply throwing out whatever slander occurs to
them,” the Republicans, said Matt Bennett, a spokesman
for the Democratic National Committee in New York.
“This is what the Republican leadership does. They lie
about people.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© 2004 The Hill
733 Fifteenth Street, NW Suite 1140
Washington, DC 20005
202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax
web site design + development
www.tammayegrissom.com
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/090404V.shtml
McCain: Miller's attack on Kerry could hurt Bush
By Janet Hook
Tribune Newspapers: Los Angeles Times
Friday 03 September 2004
NEW YORK — Sen. John McCain, who has pushed for
more civility in this year's presidential race, is
warning that the biting attack on Sen. John F. Kerry
by a fellow Democrat at the Republican National
Convention on Wednesday night might harm President
Bush's efforts to woo swing voters.
McCain (R-Ariz.) said the keynote address by Sen.
Zell Miller (D-Ga.) could prove as controversial as a
speech by Pat Buchanan at the 1992 GOP convention in
Houston.
"I think it backfires," McCain said of Miller's
rhetorical assault on Kerry. He added that it "makes
Buchanan's speech … look milquetoast."
McCain made his comments to reporters at a party
he held after the convention's Wednesday session.
Buchanan's speech — in which he declared a
"cultural war" was underway in America — was thought
by many Republicans to have hurt the reelection bid of
Bush's father, then-President George H.W. Bush. The
elder Bush lost the November vote to Democrat Bill
Clinton.
Miller's keynote address was laced with harsh
criticism of Kerry's legislative record on military
issues. Marshall Wittmann, McCain's spokesman, said
the senator favored a less divisive approach to
political debate.
"This is not his style," Wittmann said. "He would
prefer to see Democrats not as our enemies, but rather
as Americans who have good intentions but policy
differences" with Republicans.
McCain has become an active campaigner for the
younger Bush's reelection and will continue that
effort in coming days.
But he also has denounced recent ads by the Swift
Boat Veterans for Truth criticizing Kerry's military
service in Vietnam and his later protests against that
war. McCain has urged Bush to condemn the ads.