jillian
Princess
good to know he's the same disingenuous twit he's always been...
POLITICO Forumsolitics: Armey: Avoid 'tea party' label, MSNBC - POLITICO.com
the best part is the loon is still whining that rachel maddow was mean to poor rand paul. the nerve of her asking him questions and not tossing softballs like faux news.
By KENNETH P. VOGEL
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Republican candidates popular with tea party activists should refrain from self-identifying as tea party candidates and also should stay off MSNBC, Dick Armey said Wednesday.
The former House majority leader, who has emerged as a leading figure within the tea party movement as head of the nonprofit group FreedomWorks told reporters at a lunch sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, that candidates who call themselves tea party leaders are opening themselves up for more negative scrutiny from hostile media outlets, and he singled out MSNBC as a leading antagonist of the tea party movement and its favored candidates.
Any legitimate newsperson would be embarrassed to see them pretending to be newspeople, he said of MSNBC. Theyre not news people. Theyre political hacks, he said, specifically citing the networks liberal hosts Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann. Im sorry. I watch that network. I watch that Keith Olberby guy cracks me up. I know very well hes never gotten over the Americans beating the Russians in 80. And hes got this mean nasty side to him, and its entertaining, but dont tell me hes a newsperson. Its a disrespect to the profession.
Olbermann said Armey "is, as ever, perfectly, wonderfully tone deaf. I actually attended the USA upset of the USSR in Lake Placid in 1980 and it remains one of the most joyous memories of my life as a proud American. I also wonder about why Mr. Armey so happily took money to appear on my show during his days as a paid MSNBC contributor."
Armeys criticism came after he was asked if he had any advice for tea party-backed candidates such as GOP Senate candidates Rand Paul of Kentucky, who took heat after stumbling under tough questioning from Maddow about whether he supports the Civil Rights Act, and Sharron Angle of Nevada, who has avoided taking questions from most mainstream media outlets.
Rand Paul made an amateur mistake a freshman mistake, a rookie mistake. He thought MSNBC was a legitimate news operation. Bless his heart, Armey said. If he had called me and said should I go on that show? I would have said no, theyre political hacks. They will abuse the truth purposefully for a political purpose.
Later, though, Armey said Pauls bigger mistake came in his victory speech after securing the nomination, when he said I have a message from the tea party. ... We've come to take our government back" and added: "This tea party movement is a message to Washington that we are unhappy and we want things done differently."
Armey said I think that hurt him more than (the Civil Rights Act exchange), because the principles of liberty won that position and he won by adhering to them. He quipped that Pauls reasoning for positioning himself as a tea party leader might have been, Alright, I dont have a big enough target on my back. Since the left hates the tea party and they hate me, lets see if we can get em to double down on me by me claiming to be the leader of the tea party.
Dont ask for more of what you really dont want, Armey said. Pointing out that Paul ran as a Republican he won the Republican primary, Armey suggested that Paul and other tea party-backed candidates can remain true to the movements limited government principles without becoming targets by declaring themselves tea party leaders.
He recommended that tea party-backed candidates stick to local media outlets and Fox News, which is regarded as friendlier turf for conservatives.
Fox News for many of us, we believe is more accurate and reliable than most news most of the time, and we are quite comfortable enjoy when weve given interviews there, he said.
Still, he described a a free, fair, professional press as crucial to a functioning democracy and said irrespective of the number of disappointments that you will have in the press and you will have them, you must always be willing to take a chance on anybody who says I am from the press and I am here to interview you, until you know for certain that this is one of the unreliable ones. You should all be thought to be reliable until proven otherwise.
POLITICO Forumsolitics: Armey: Avoid 'tea party' label, MSNBC - POLITICO.com
the best part is the loon is still whining that rachel maddow was mean to poor rand paul. the nerve of her asking him questions and not tossing softballs like faux news.