Not everyone swoons when a celebrity graces Capitol Hill. House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (in photo), D-Wis., greeted U2 rocker Bono’s lobbying about AIDS funding with the words "The hell with you." Obey told Bloomberg news service: "I don’t need any lectures from an Irishman to tell me what the hell our obligation is." Obey has been bipartisan in his verbal abuse over the years, but his prime target at the moment is the White House: "Who is getting screwed in George Bush’s budget? It’s the little guy. He’s going to veto our bills" because Democrats want to give "a few table scraps to the people in this society who get so damn little."
Asked about his sharp tongue, Obey said: "In this town, there’s too much tolerance for bull—-."
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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28 Comments
Pretty bizarre remark about Bono. But if Obey holds to his promise to include a withdrawal timetable in the Iraq spending bill, he can say whatever he likes.
At least Obey is willing to speak his mind and ask hard questions. We need less politic and “bull—-” in Washington and more action.
I wonder why there is no outrage about Obey’s insult to all AIDS victims?
What about it moveon trash?
Where is Media Mashers on this subject?
Obey’s insult was not to the AIDS victims but it was directed to Bono, Kansas.
As a country, we are more willing to give to a cause if a certain celebrity endorses it. Why is that?
Obey is correct when the Bush Administration can see to it that our own people get what they need, then we can look to give to others such as Bono’s cause.
BTW when did Republicans ever give a damn about AIDS?
BTW when did Republicans ever give a damn about AIDS?
Not that public money given really equals caring, but in lib speak it do. So here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070530-6.html
Ah, not since the days of James Traficant have we had such a colorful outspoken Congressman. Wasn’t it just a few months back that he publicly told a constituent (and the left wing) of his party to “go to hell” for demanding that he cut off funding for the war? Of course all will be forgiven if he follows through with his threat to force a withdrawal date.
And Bono needs to return to his mates and resume his music career. Maybe they got one more great album like “Joshua Tree” left in them.
I have ZERO sympathy for people who contracy aids unless it is via rape or a bad transfusion. If homesexuals and africans are too stupid/wicked to avoid that plague then they deserve to perish and not pass on their worthless genes. It is a lifestyle choice and we should not be wasting valuable resources in that area!
BTW when did Republicans ever give a damn about AIDS?
Posted by: maidmarion | October 05, 2007 at 02:10 PM
—–
I suggest, MM, you look into the Bush Administration’s funding for AIDS research and assistance.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/30/AR2007053001403.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10554037
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-01-29-bush-africa_x.htm
I’m hardly a Bush fan, but give credit where it’s due.
Kansas Druid may need rabies shots if he keeps foaming at the mouth like that. It’s not just gays and africans who get AIDS. Little kids & babies get it too. So what was it about their worthless- gene-lifestyle-choice point were you making?
Loser.
another politician thinking it the governments job to take from one person and give to another. And the last I new the government cleans it plate and steals from others. what table scraps are left???
He may not want a lecture from an Irishman about what the hell his obligation is, but it sure sounds like he needs one.
I wish all members of congress would treat all lobbyists the same way, not just Bono.
I care about AIDS
I have given CPR twice.
Not sure what I will do, if I have the chance/curse, again.
MM, you are an anti-Republican BIGOT!
Republicans truly believe that too much government causes more misery.
There is ample historical evidence to support us in that belief.
However, Republicans, starting with Reagan, have supported AIDS research.
George W. Bush has funded a HUGE program in Africa.
I believe AIDS is a government problem, I also believe that it receives ENOUGH funding.
We fund AIDS programs at a much higher level than many other diseases.
I admire Obey for speaking his mind.
Guilt-trip celebrity pressure is not the way to budget resources.
As you stated yourself – giving money does not equate caring. Ronald Reagan led the Republicans on the AIDS epidemic and his view of AIDS was what? It’s a homosexual disease…Enough said.
I must have really hit your nail on the head today, huh? Such indignation.
Reagan did not start AIDS research – he stonewalled and made it into a homosexual disease. Bush ONLY gave AIDS funding to Africa after being shamed into doing so.
Don’t tell me REpublicans give a damn about AIDS because # 1 – there is no oil to be stolen , # 2 – it is one of ‘those people’s’ diseases.
maidmarion – another Lib who thinks they are a legend in their own mind.
Disregard the facts maidmarion. The Bush Administration has spent more on AIDS prevention, treatment and research than all previous administrations combined.
The First Lady even went to a three day AIDS conference held at the U.N. as a keynote speaker.
Go ahead and disregard the facts maidmarion, cause facts don’t matter to Libs.
They can just say Bush something or other and it suddenly becomes true
…in their delusional, weak minds.
maid
AIDS is PRIMARILY a “homosexual disease”.
It is a mathamatical long shot that anyone who is not a hemopheliac, is not a gay male and does not abuse intravenous drugs will get AIDS.
I think AIDS deserves funding, anyway.
And, Reagan was the first President to ever HEAR the word “AIDS” — Government never responds quickly to any new trend or problem.
I think government, over all, has behaved admirably on this issue.
The Republican Party has actually been BETTER Than the Dems, in many cases:
http://gaypatriot.net/2006/08/24/hillary-holding-up-aids-funding
The above post says that Bill AND Hillary Clinton have NOT been good on this issue.
I am no fan of The Idiot (Bush) but I will give him credit here. He has been pretty good on the AIDS in Africa issue.
LOL boy twice today I have found something that Paul said I agreed with. And I will point out, as GMC70 did, he has funded aids research and I will also point out to counter something else. Because you see a need of another and help in some way to help. Does not mean you have to approve of their actions that may have caused their need. We need to give credit to President Regan for that too, even if he was not approving of the gay lifestyle he did do something about aids!
Somewhat off topic but I need to point out, the Bush administration DOES spend like the liberals are given credit for. They just spend on different things and are “Big Government” believers, in that respect the Neo-Cons show their Socialist roots.
Just another arrogant Democrat.
Next!
Reagan did his best about AIDS…by covering it up.
Exactly what did George W. Bush do that he was not shamed into doing? It took Bono and others to get Bush to even think bout AIDS funding for Africa.
And for Reagan, he delayed AIDS research because he was a major player in the hysteria of that homosexual disease.
If AIDS is just a homosexual disease, then why are trusting wives getting it from their husbands? Prostitutes who are drug userx and not gay?
“Reagan would ultimately address the issue of AIDS while president. His remarks came May 31, 1987 (near the end of his second term), at the Third
International Conference on AIDS in Washington. When he spoke, 36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with AIDS and 20,849 had died. The disease had spread to 113 countries, with more than 50,000 cases.”
“Reagan could have chosen to end the homophobic rhetoric that flowed from so many in his administration. Dr. C. Everett Koop, Reagan’s surgeon general, has said that because of “intradepartmental politics” he was cut out of all AIDS discussions for the first five years of the Reagan administration. The reason, he explained, was “because transmission of AIDS was understood to be primarily in the homosexual population and in those who abused intravenous
drugs.” The president’s advisers, Koop said, “took the stand, ‘They are only getting what they justly deserve.’ ”
“How profoundly different might have been the outcome if his leadership had generated compassion rather than hostility. “In the history of the AIDS epidemic, President Reagan’s legacy is one of silence,” Michael Cover, former associate executive director for public affairs at Whitman-Walker Clinic, the groundbreaking AIDS health-care organization in Washington. in 2003. “It is the silence
of tens of thousands who died alone and unacknowledged, stigmatized by our government under his administration.” ”
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/06/08/EDG777163F1.DTL
I’d like to know what Obey was tweaking about. Oh well.
Rage
Everyone was blindsided by AIDS.
Nobody knew, for sure, what to do because nobody really understood it.
However, there are lots of Gay activists that carry far more blame than any politician.
Radical Gay activists opposed the closing of the “bath houses” in San Francisco, and elsewhere.
MANY of the early cases of AIDS can be traced to a Gay flight attendent who refused to practice safe sex, though he was fully aware of his disease.
We can NOT protect people from themselves.
We can NOT expect government to protect us from individual stupidity.
Nice revisionism, P-Con. Not sure what your victim-blaming has to do with treating/curing an infectious disease, but hardly evefyone was “blindsighted”:
“Writing in the Washington Post in late 1985, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, stated: “It is surprising that the president could remain silent as 6,000 Americans died, that he could fail to acknowledge the epidemic’s existence. Perhaps his staff felt he had to, since many of his New Right supporters have raised money by campaigning against homosexuals.”
More like wilful blindness.
RageIt is entirely possible to oppose gay marriage and still support AIDS research.
Democrats are not really a party that thinks alike, Democrats are a bunch of different interest groups who learned to keep quite about things they didnt care too much about, in order to get support for what they DO care about. (James Carville actually taught me that).
The Homosexual lobby made LOTS of mistakes where AIDS is concerned. That they were not speaking with a rational, unified voice, at first, hurt their cause.
However, to Rage and MaidM:
How did any Dem or Lib ever “shame” Reagan or either Bush into ANYTHING?
When they firmly believed in something, they have all been stubborn as hell.
You are ridiculous.
Liberals get mad at W for being too stubborn, then they claim, when he does what they want, that he was “shamed” into it.
You probably think he kicks his dog, cusses at his mother, tosses litter out his car window and farts in elevators.
We get it, you DONT like Bush.
However, we are trying, conservatives on this Blog, to have a rational conversation.
Your hatred seems to make that impossible MM.
Econ101,BRAVO! That is an excellent summing up of the Democrat party. (And to stop all you haters in your tracks, I am not a Republican…I’m a GDI.)
Type “patient zero” into your browser.
Yes, there is debate, even on this issue, but facts are facts.
Nobody knew exactly what to do, 30 years or even 20 years ago.
However, there were more than just a few Gay men who cared very little about their fellow man, and did NOT tell their partners they had AIDS.
No, I am not trying to “blame the victim” — I am just asking for some fairness.
Don’t blame government for stupid individual behavior!