Why I will always have a soft spot for Bob Dole

[CMT]

I vividly remember this exchange on the night of the NH primary in 1988 where Sen. Dole was challenging then VP George Herbert Walker Bush and Bush won the primary. It was on a special moderated by NBC's Tom Brokaw. This is pretty close to what was actually said:

Dole and Bush are on split screen.

Brokaw: Mr. Vice President, do you have anything to say to Senator Dole?

Bush: Give him my best. Look forward to seeing him on the campaign trail.

Brokaw: Senator anything you'd like to say to the Vice president?

Dole (without humor): Yeah, Stop lying about my record!!

Classic.

[northzax]

1. yeah well

now that he's not shilling for Pfizer, I bet Bob Dole has a 'soft spot' as well...

[Skittles]

2. Dole would recommend a blue pill

for that soft spot. :evilgrin:

[Drifter]

3. Me too ...

I was impressed by his appearance on SNL just after he lost the election to Clinton. He really seemed to take it well, and was able to have fun with it. I gained a tremendous amount of respect for him at that point. Don't get me wrong, I think he would have made a horrible President.

Cheers
Drifter

[noonwitch]

4. I felt really bad for him when he fell off that podium in 1996

He's a veteren, injured in the service of his nation. He's not part of the BFEE, he's an old-school republican, from the days when there were still good republicans. He also was hilarious when he came on Letterman shortly after losing the 1996 election, and was a very good sport about Norm McDonald's impersonation of him. I have a soft place in my heart for him, too.

[MrBenchley]

6. Ever read his biography?

"WHAT HAPPENED TO HIS ARM - "Lieutenant Bob Dole was hit by German mortar fire on April 14, 1945, near Bologna, Italy. The shrapnel crushed his spine and broke his collarbone, his right shoulder, and his right arm. Unable to move, he nearly bled to death on the battlefield and was shipped back to Kansas in a body cast on which, his mother would discover, other GIs use to stub out their cigarettes.

Paralyzed in both arms and legs, Dole spent 39 months in recovery. "I couldn't feed myself, I couldn't dress myself, I couldn't walk." Dole's right arm was fused to his body at a 45-degree angle until an adventerous orthopedic surgeon carved a new ball and socket for his shoulder and, using transplanted thigh muscle, rehung the arm at Dole's side." (Hoberman) "

http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~rudloff/E309S-F96/projects/image/lets_get.html

[Friar]

5. You said "soft" huh huh

hehe :silly:

[Exultant Democracy]

7. I feel the same way about him.

He isn't a neo con, and unlike a lot of the rethugs he really does love the U.S.

[TreasonousBastard]

8. Yeah...

Dole was the "loyal opposition" not the lunatic fringe there now that purged most of them out.

We had a Congresswoman in the next district, Marge Roukema, a typical Joisey moderate Republican who I might even have voted for should I have had the chance. Differed on a few things, but she was straight up and didn't take much crap from anyone, even her own party. Been there for quite a few terms.

She wasn't "Republican enough," so the wingnuts engineered a brutal primary fight for her seat and she almost lost it. She also lost committee assignments, and was generally dissed. Then, next time 'round, she just decided it wasn't worth it if she didn't have her own party's support, and retired. I was hoping she'd jump parties and fill in for the fallen Torricelli, but, alas, such a thing could never be in this state.

There was once a time you could work with Republicans, and when Dole was there, he personified the old Senate that worked. Sort of-- as well as can be expected, anyway.

No more. They've destroyed it, and it will be a long time before we see it again.

[julka]

9. sorry, folks, but Dole is a SLIMEbucket of the first order

there are SO many disgusting things he's pulled that I'm surprised you haven't mentioned any.

this guy is SUCH a corrupt, venal prick that I can barely stand to type this.......have to take a shower right away.

start here

http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/story17.html

see what a real journalist has to say

this is just the tip of the iceberg


if you really want to become ill, read "Senator for Sale"

[julka]

11. from the link:

On Christmas Eve 1992, lame-duck President George Bush killed the Iran-contra case by pardoning former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and five other Iran-contra defendants. Two months later at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Dole openly boasted about his efforts to derail Walsh's criminal investigation.

"Over the years, I've taken to the Senate floor on countless occasions to detail the dismal record of Lawrence Walsh," Dole declared in a hard-edged Kansas twang. "I've discussed his record of courtroom embarrassments, ...his violation of Washington D.C. tax laws, ...his first-class air fares, the lavish office space. He has a hotel room at the Watergate which he never uses and I've suggested that he provide it to the homeless." The room erupted with laughter.

"I've talked about his breakfasts, his paid-for room service and dinners provided by the American taxpayers," Dole continued. "I've even discussed term limits for special prosecutors. (Guffaws and applause) I've discussed his blatant interference into the American political process, ...his frequent violations of national security regulations. Besides all that, I don't have many complaints about Lawrence Walsh." (More laughter)

Though Walsh was a lifelong Republican, Dole said he sniffed some questionable political loyalties among Walsh's deputies. "We checked out a lot of the staff," the senator announced, with a hint of conspiracy in his voice. "We found out their political leanings and we checked on their political contributions. Nobody here got any. (Laughter) So it seems to me it's time for Lawrence Walsh to move on to some other line of work." (Applause)

Like his hero Nixon, Dole saw nothing wrong with compiling an "enemies list." One could imagine the furor today if Democratic Senate Leader Tom Daschle conducted an investigation into the "political leanings" of the staff surrounding Whitewater special prosecutor Kenneth Starr.

Yet, since the easily bored Washington media was tired of Walsh and the Iran-contra scandal by 1993 and generally admired Dole as a pragmatist, no journalist demanded to know who paid for the investigation into the "political leanings" of Walsh's staff or how that information was used. Stories attacking Walsh's staff prosecutors had appeared on the Wall Street Journal editorial page and in other conservative publications.

OBSTRUCTION of JUSTICE

It also passed largely unnoticed that Dole's speech contested none of Walsh's factual findings. Late in his investigation, Walsh had discovered that nearly every senior official in the Reagan-Bush national security hierarchy had lied under oath as part of the Iran-contra cover-up. Walsh had uncovered what looked like a six-year obstruction of justice masterminded inside the Oval Office by the nation's highest executive officials.

With the Christmas Eve pardons, Bush had protected himself and his "out-of-the-loop" lie as well as a host of other senior Republicans from being held accountable for their crimes. From the Senate floor, Dole had provided important political cover for the cover-up. Dole had perfected the role that he had understudied during Nixon's Watergate scandal.

In so doing, Dole proved himself an able accessory to the pattern of secret illegal government actions that have distorted and dominated the American political process in recent years. There is no reason to believe that a Dole Presidency would not mean more of the same.

read Firewall, by Walsh, for an extended version of the above, in which he destroys all Dole's fabrications about Walsh's alleged misuse of power, etc.

Dole is one of the WORST. can't believe people here, of all others, have fallen for the mainstream hype about this WEASEL.

just try this; it'll keep you busy for a long time.

just the tip

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=lawrence+walsh+bob+dole

[charlie]

12. Back in the day

when Republicans were still recognizably human, old Bob was considered to be one of the dark ones. He was hatchetman to Jerry Ford's nice guy on the 1976 ticket. He only started to look sane after the rise of the late eighties jihad Republicans.

Still, I miss him -- the guy could never temper his urge to toss wicked barbs at his opponents, and it was always pure entertainment to see him whack on fellow Repubs. He'd reduce a dumbass like Phil Gramm into grinning beetred hamburger, without pausing to consider that he'd have to work with the guy the next morning in the Senate. He once quipped that a Steve Forbes fundraiser was taking his wife out to dinner and writing himself a check. Haw!

[robbedvoter]

10. Can Viagra help with that?