Arkansas Blog

while Brummett's equation is correct, it does not excuse Senator Pryor's conduct.

in almost any other field, Pryor would have been fired or forced to resign after making so many fundamental mistakes. in some other cultures, Honor would have compelled him to resign in disgrace.

but the degraded state of political dichotomy in the U.S. today has so thoroughly warped the electorate's sense of right and wrong, that even Brummett, who should know better, will defend him.

stephen h. smith 29 April 2007

JB gives Pryor proper credit in Attorneygate. He mistakenly, in my opinion, trivializes the Iraq votes. I also believe the Gang of 14 thing ended up giving the Bushies exactly what they wanted; I would have preferred a more principled stand, even if it resulted in the senator being on the losing side (which would have made no practical difference to the results).

"I don't know who's been
calling U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor a
wimp...
- John Brummett"

I don't know either. Who called him a wimp? I've heard Pryor called a lot of things. I've called him a lot of things. But I've never heard him called a wimp. He's shown plenty of courage. That's nice, but as others have said above, courage does not dismiss a horrible voting record.

JB is speaking to what I've been pointing out for some time now. You guys continually attack MP personally. I think that what you guys need to recognize is that he represents the values of Arkansas voters. Those values are a good bit more pragmatic, and far more conservative than yours.

Tax Payer...haven't you figured it out yet? These extreme left wing nuts try to completely destroy anyone who votes against their values.

Mark Pryor is an emerging, fairly conservative, leader in Washington. However, some Democrats don't even support their own kparty because he not taken these extreme left wing positions when he votes.

It is, however, entertaining to listen to these morons who lack any credibility.

Great comment!?!? Catfish Eater, I'm giving it -- 78, catchy, but too hard to dance!!!

Try another...old song PLEASE!!!

I will not stop slamming Mark Pryor (and Blanche Lincoln) for their votes that helped to pass the bankruptcy "reform" bill of 2005, when there was absolutely no need for them to vote with the Republican majority in order for the bill to pass. The bill did NOT serve the people of Arkansas, 49th in per capita income and in 2005, 7th in bankruptcies, nationally. What clamor was their from their constituents to pass this anti-consumer bill? I'll wager next to none. At the time I certainly called offices of both Senators and urged them to NOT support that bill and I called them afterwards to express my ire.

I feel the real reason they voted FOR that bill was the lure of continued contributions from credit card companies.

Pryor voted to confirm Abu Gonzales, known with certainty at the time of the vote to have been moving the goalposts on torture and known to have extreme disregard for the Geneva Convention. His "Gang of 14" schemes left me cold and look where it has gotten us. So NOW Pryor calls Gonzales a liar? Forgive me for not applauding his late, late in the day "courage."

As for remaining anonymous, I certainly will. I gave my name, address and phone number to the senators' offices in the line of exercising my voting rights as a citizen. Appropriate there, not so much at the AT blog, a place for unfettered discussion, argument and expression of opion. Voting is the exercise of my citizenship. Discussion is the exercise of free speech. Bite me, Brummett.

From Brummits article:

"A wimp doesn't get the attorney general calling on his office. "
Teague said.

-------
I think the reason Gonzo went to Pryors office was because Senator Schumer called him out in public during the latest hearings and said He think Gonzo should clear things up with Senator Pryor who thinks Gonzo lied to him.. (I watched them on CSPAN)
I say nice try but I don't recall anyone here or on other blogs calling him a whimp for the way he has handled this DOJ fiasco. Though many are not at all persuaded these actions negate so many other appalling decisions he has made.
-------------
More of the article:

A wimp doesn't get the attorney general calling on his office. A wimp doesn't look the nation's chief law enforcement officer in the eye and tell him to quit. A wimp doesn't blow the lid off a Washington scandal.

Before I get Teague in too much trouble for defending a charge that Pryor perhaps would prefer not get aired in the first place, let me hasten to lend context.

"It was not mushy, wishy-washy or chicken, but the precise opposite, for Pryor, a mere freshman, to venture from the comfortable cloak of the Senate Democratic leadership and, largely by his own initiative, round up that "Gang of 14" to prevent a meltdown over filibustering judicial nominations.........."
-------

So the fact that he is not just a member but an organizer of the gang of fourteen is supposed to be impressive to Democrats like me!! It may be impressive in the sense of organizing abilities but for what purpose! Scores or even more Federalist Judges! An end to Roe! A rubber stamp for the likes of Gonzo and Alito and Alice Fisher etc.( enter DBI's list here) An end to Habeas Corpus... without full long debate or allowing his party to filibuster! Heck yea I am very upset about it! He is not fit for my party, my constitution, not fit to decide all women's reproductive medical diagnosis while pregnant with complications. It takes a small man to not care about fair trials or sound medical treatment between patients and doctors. It takes a small man to not say these decisions are best left to the doctors and patients..or best left on the side of liberty.

I would think a huge majority of Democrats and many Independents if made fully aware of his actions would never vote for continued representation from the Senator.

As for calling out for anonymous folks to speak up when calling him a whimp and not pointing to where he was actually called one...well that just sounds like an upset spoiled little bully who desperately want to pitch a fit over something, anything but his own failings.. The Senator almost never responds to letters and rarely addresses the points raised in letters. He seeks to operate an evil occupation on a foreign land of innocents in secret! When the people want to know once and for all their soldiers are coming home, asap.

No defender of Pryor ever addresses his actions or argues with facts in his defense. We have someone in Brummits article (Teague) who on occasion tries to, but fails miserably on any point beyond his outing of Griffin.

Brummit does us a service by showing us classic Lieber maneuvering in play here. Pryor wants the world to focus on the fact he raised a stink about the Grifter and sat on his office throne while Shumer made sure Gonzo came to him and yet Gonzo another little man in big shoes did not actually apologize.

I am glad Pryor outed the Grifting of Eastern AR, USA shenanigans. Kudos! Now what about all the dead, soon to be dead and tortured, innocents, prisoners, women, and theological judges... etc etc. way to little way to shiny pony..look look over here, i found a rat that stinks more than I do.

Not to mention in detail what Pryors intentions are in re net neutrality or his vote on the bankruptcy bill or to use cluster bombs on innocent civilians in Lebanon. and on and on...

i beg to differ on sen marks not responding. he has always responded to me but it has been in a legalise politican non answer which is typical for any politican. there are others in the office who will give a real answer over the phone. what has bothered me is the same as all of the above, torture, bankruptcy, gonzales and a few others where he tried to appeal to what he thought was his conservative base or his pal joe. i was about as offended by his contributions to lieberman. he did not even support his party with that, he was sent up there as a democrat and as we have seen joe has not proven to be one. he has come up to where a real senator needs to be on the attorney situation but that is where he needs to be every day not just when he gets pissed off. maybe his aide bob russell needs to slap him a few times every morning real hard just to make him mad to start the day and he will be a better senator.

I hardly have a word to type after mag and Eureka's posts. They summed up the Pryor Problem very nicely using facts like a rope around his neck.

Brummett's effectiveness as a journalist can now be discounted after showing when it comes to Mark Pryor, we cannot expect honesty and facts to overcome Brummett's unexplained love of our flawed junior Senator.

I'd also like to point out mild displeasure that Max chides everyone of us for posting anonymously. Let the AT require us to use our real names and then he can use these empty blog pages for more pictures of Mrs. Carroll.

We're in the middle of a war. Though most people can duck their heads and miss the whole thing, these are serious times. Only the gullible and pure party hacks believe Mark Pryor is an effective and honest Senator for the State of Arkansas. He lost me at torture....

Tax Payer would have us believe that his values and those of the people of Arkansas embrace and approve of torture. If this is so, what a dirty, rotten, little state we live in. Of all his wrong-headed votes and ideas, approving torture is 100 miles past acceptable to me. Nothing Pryor can do in the future excuses that 1 vote among his many bad ones. I have to assume John Brummett is a fan of torture too. How disheartening......

Arkansas will always be the appendix of America as long as we're comfortable with electing and reelecting 3rd rate people to office. Brummett's fantasy repackaging of Pryor's voting record, support for Lieberman, membership in the Bushie Gang of 14, vote for torture and pretend detective work on Gonzales would make Karl Rove proud. Rove is the master of making black look white, making incompetence look like a virtue. And now it's spread to the faux liberal voice of Arkansas. How disheartening....

Both Lincoln and Pryor have sat silently while the RNC made off with our country. Lincoln has had no voice at all. Pryor only hollered after he figured out late in the game that he'd been hoodwinked by the people on the other side he's bent over to please. Reacting to the rape of your daughter is not the same as being smart enough to prevent it.

Our Senators take the easy way out and let Schumer, Feinstein, Leahy and others do the heavy lifting. Pryor can't even be expected to vote in support of his fellow Democrats. Yet Brummett tries to spin that into some kind of display of courage on Pryor's part. Are we that stupid?

That Brummett has suddenly suspended his hard won credibility in this state to defend bumbling Mark Pryor shows Pryor CAN be beat in the primary. Mark's camp smells defeat and have pulled out the big guns early to try and stop a landslide in '08.

If anyone's paying attention, the Pryor record should sink him despite Brummett's best efforts to make black, white and Pryor's failings as a Senator some kind of good thing.

If we assume for a minute that everything Mark Pryor has done in his time in office was a genuine attempt at mending the fences between Democrats and Republicans the facts show he not only failed but enabled the bad guys. For this he should be rewarded with another term? I think not.

His sainted father served in better times when being a friendly face in the Senate was a good thing. David Pryor accomplish very little, but he never embarrassed us. That was enough back then. But today we live in danger. Not so much from angry guys from the Middle East, but from evil Americans teaming up with corporate America and organized religion, trying to steal our government. Pryor's friendly, aw shucks, get along-go along act has hurt America.

When the history books are written Mark Pryor will be written up as a fool. At the risk of hurting his feelings, I can't have that. If Pryor and Lincoln are examples of the best Democrats Arkansas can send to DC, then no wonder John Boozman got reelected and is calling the shots for Arkansas in Attorney-Gate.

If we can't do better than this we should revert back to a territory and let the Army take control. How sad this makes me....

Mr. Anonymous Tax Payer evidently has to bang the old "personal attack" drum one more time here...

I never see "personal attacks" posted here on 73...you can stop going there...his crappy voting record is enough fodder with which to play...

Senator Pryor knows who I am because he responds to most of my letters to him...and I appreciate that...

Does that make me an anonymous attacker?! I think not...I pay my taxes too and for that specific reason I am entitled to criticize any elected official and do my part to see better candidates get elected...

True, Arkansas is a relatively conservative state...our Dems are more conservative than, say, east coast Republicans...I get it...I understand...

But Brummett is way off in La-La Land in his critique of the anonymous forums of blogs and the like...

And it doesn't excuse 73's poor voting record regarding Gonzales, Iraq and that crap "Gang of 14"...

Gimme a break, Brummett...

>>I also believe the Gang of 14 thing ended up giving the Bushies exactly what they wanted;<<

BINGO, as they turned Mark into a pimp for the Supremes.

Catfish, yell and call names but the pendelum is swinging away from American Nazism. People are wising up. You can't keep publishing income disparities all over the place and have nobody pay attention.

About Brumett, I appreciated him more when he was an unabashed liberal, writing about his hard-working father. when he came to Fayetteville to speak in favor of the ACLU.

I don't know what happened to Brummett, bigger house payment? Rich neighbors? Too much Stephens' kool-aid? I think John got in on the Long Right Turn just as it's winding down and about to go Left. So it's a good straddle John , when the R turn ends you can go back and say " I told you so."
_

Hmmm. This reminds me of a discussion several years ago concerning whether George H. W. Bush was a wimp. Calvin Trillin or Russell Baker (I can't remember which) settled the matter with a cute little poem which can be summed up as "he's not a wimp; he's a twit."

So, how can I state this in terms that Brummett will understand? Oh, yeah -- I don't know (or care) if Pryor is a wimp; but he's definitely Jethro.

>>..you can read in the rabid left-wing blogosphere. I'm talking about these illogical partisans who type tough at their computer screens all day.

Anonymous disdain for gutlessness - yes, let us not cover our ears to the screaming irony.<<

Oh save my jaw from dropping thru the friggin floor Brumett. How many times has the Fourth Estate used "annonymous sources", "unidentified source"
"sources deep within the..."
once even to make a case for impeachment. Gimme a friggin break and go take tomorrow's hypocrisy pill early.

It's also noteworthy that Brumett allows no blogging on his blog site.
Says much.
_

The facts are not anonymous here.

You said it best, Eureka. Well put.

I am one of many who have repeated commented on Mark Pryor's standing as the #2 stealth Republican in the U.S. I have never called him wimpy.

I have stated repeatedly that he has been ineffectual in achieving the goals and outcomes I expected and many other supporters expected when we voted for him. He isn't getting any better with age.

If I want a Republican Senator I can vote for the Huckabeen or Hutchinson that Tax Payer and Catfish Eater put up on the ballot. Pryor has some time to convince those who voted for him that he is representing them, but I believe he has irreparably damaged his Democratic Party support for the next election. Maybe he will make it up with Tax Payer and Catfish Eaters' NWArk Pouilly-Fusse drinkers.

However, when all is said and done, he has been a support asset for the Bush administration in Senate votes and has received a warm wet raspberry from Gonzales and the Administration with Griffin.

Finally, Griffin is in place until the next President appoints a replacement and both our Senators and especially manly Pryor have a lot of rebuilding fences to regain the Democratic Party support they once had, if they want it.

He won't be a "wimp," if he decides to vote with the Democratic Party again either, but if I was Bob Russell I would make sure he remembers to say 'Democratic Party' not 'Democrat Party.' He's been playing with "Dim Son's" people for too long and might may an "honest mistake."

I don't think that it was courage that caused MP to gripe about Griffen. It was indignation about not being consulted about the replacement, especially after MP's "Benedict Arnold" act in voting for the Bushist agenda with the rest of the closet (gang of 14) republicans. He expected to be rewarded for his treachery, not ignored.

Brummett lecturing others about picking on poor Pryor is rich; and an example of the kind of media that enabled us into this disastrous ungodly war. My god Pryor finally takes an un-acquiescent, righteous stand on the Gonzo crap and you'd think he was some kind of principled Democratic rebel who's only guilty of being unjustly persecuted by us anonymous blogging liberals. The activist libs I know are far too opinionated/passionate to be anonymous about anything to do with politics. As others have stated, Pryor's office is more than likely well acquainted with most on this blog.

...and ditto to bite me Brummett!

Oh yeah...the shtick about libs personally attacking Pryor is tiring, wrong and indicative of having nothing substantive to say about the issue.

>>"Bite me Brummett!"<<

It should be "bite you Brummett and MP"

Go get him Zelda! The real sheepherders I knew used their teeth to harvest "rocky mountain oysters" from male sheep who pretended to be rams.

It is sad, Mark, that some democrats in Arkansas think that their only choice is ewe.

All this gnashing of teeth about Mark Pryor is typical of the self-destructive tendencies of some liberals in Arkansas. If someone doesn't vote EXACTLY how you want, you call him a traitor and rail against his re-election.

Luckily for sensible Democrats, Pryor doesn't have serious opposition for renomination or in the general election, because if he did, all you purists would sit out the race and help hand the U.S. Senate back to the Republicans.

In 1972, anti-war Democrats called the shots at the convention and sensible Democratic nominees like Edmund Muskie, Scoop Jackson or Hubert Humphrey were rejected in favor of George McGovern, a decent but politically inept man who ran the single most disastrous Democratic presidential campaign in American history.

Richard Nixon with McGovern as his opponent won re-election in a landslide in 1972 and almost destroyed the country. Had sense prevailed, a Democrat could have beaten Nixon in 1972 and spared the country a lot of turmoil.

Is Pryor perfect? Hell, no. But he's better than the alternative--a Republican. In a perfect world, an unabashedly liberal Democrat could win a statewide race in Arkansas. But it's not going to happen. There is absolutely no way anyone is going to unseat Pryor in the Democratic primary running to his left.

The real alternative to Pryor is a Republican, who would vote to organize the Senate to elect a Republican majority leader. Does your distaste for Pryor really go so far that you wouldn't mind having Mitch McConnell as the next Senate Majority Leader?

The Democrats have a ONE-SEAT MARGIN in the Senate. Give all these litmus tests a rest, because they are simply not feasible--or wise. Electing a Democratic President in 2008 would be terribly stained by the Republicans regaining control of the Senate thanks to a bunch of starry-eyed McGovernites in Arkansas.

Is Pryor perfect? Hell, no. But he's better than the alternative--a Republican.

Beg to differ. Except for his very last vote, Pryor has voted like a Republican. Except for upsetting the balance of power in the Senate, which should do more correcting in '08 because real Democrats will be running in other state, electing a Republican to Pryor's seat won't make a damn bit of difference.

I would be looking for a Republican candidate who states they wouldn't vote for torture, of course. But all in all I reject your idea that there is not one single good Democrat in Arkansas that can run for the Senate in 2008.

We got 3 million people in this state, you actually think only Mark Pryor is good enough to run on the Democratic ticket for the Senate next year?

If that's so, we need to merge with Oklahoma and get plumb out of the state business. Wes Clark can beat Pryor. I'm not so sure Halter can't beat Pryor. Hell....I might could beat Pryor.

Not only is Mark Pryor wimpy, no matter what Brummett says, but as Bush goes down the toilet, Republicans and for sure weakling Democrats who have supported Bush these last 6 years will go down the toilet with him.

All any Democrat has to do is start now singing Pryor's record at the top of their voice and by election day David Pryor might not vote for his own son. Mark Pryor is a nice guy. His voting record is a piece of shit.

There's the problem that he'll have to overcome....siding with the bad guys way way way too often in an ugly era that will be remembered less fondly than the McCarthy years. Why he chose to vote like he did may remain a mystery forever, but he was the wrong guy in the wrong job at the wrong time in US history.

DBI, You are right.

We are not looking for perfection or near-perfection (as in Saint Vic), we are looking for honesty. If Arkansas wanted a Republican, Mark would not have been initially elected. He lied.

Unfortunately, with incumbancy, name recognition, and a huge war chest of corporate bribes, Arkansas has its own Joe Lieberman for as long as he wants to betray us.

Maybe a third party choice will convince Demos to think more seriously about who they want to send to Washington.