Hatch gives up on dignity, says terrorists will strike if Dems win

August 17, 2006

I wish I could say this is surprising, but Orrin Hatch’s record belies exactly these kinds of ugly smears.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, who continuously decries the bitter partisanship in Washington, implied this week that Democratic success in November’s election could result in terrorist attacks on America.

Hatch was quoted in Tuesday’s Tooele Transcript Bulletin as saying Middle East terrorists are “waiting for the Democrats here to take control, let things cool off and then strike again.”

In a subsequent “clarification,” Hatch added that those who want to withdraw troops from Iraq are terrorist “appeasers.”

Hatch’s name doesn’t come as often as it should when compiling a list of the Senate’s most offensive fear-mongers, but in just the last couple of years, it’s hard to match the Utah senator’s record of shameless demagoguery.

It was Hatch, for example, who said opponents of Samuel Alito’s Supreme Court nomination were anti-Italian. Similarly, he said opponents of Bill Pryor’s judicial nomination were anti-Catholic (including the Catholics who were critical of Pryor).

With regards to national security, in 2004, Hatch said terrorists would “throw everything they can between now and the election to try and elect Kerry.”

And, in my personal favorite, Hatch said “no one with brains” denies that Saddam Hussein was supporting Osama bin Laden.

Considering how frequently Hatch laments the “partisan atmosphere” in Washington, the man has unfortunately become an embarrassment to himself.

Major Kool-Aid overdose in the Utah delegation! With the increase in Republican desperation comes the increase in their shrillness. My, things are getting bad in the Republican camp, aren’t they.

  • Douche-bags one and all. I can only interpret “let things cool off” to mean during the period the Dems are in charge while waiting for itchy trigger finger republicants to return to power.

  • No wonder the left doesnt have to go scouring through blogs looking for crazy commentary…

  • What a fool. It is the republicans and their cowardly, paranoid reaction to 9-11 that effectively accomplished Bin Laden’s objectives: To turn America into a nation of fear, embroil us in resource depleting wars, and ruin our stature around the world. FDR said we have nothing to fear but fear itself; the republicans use fear as a weapon against Americans. These people are traitors, and their every action runs counter to the principles of democracy our founding fathers endowed to us..

  • I love the “let things cool off”. That means that if the Democrats succeed in reducing terrorism, it’s not our good work, but the Terrorists goofing off for a while.

    This is plain insulting. Apparantly, America doesn’t get to be a multi-party democracy anymore, because we are under terrorist attack. We could conduct a national election for President in the middle of a Civil War that eventually cost the lives of a million plus Americans, but we can’t have a second party during the Global War on Terrorism because more than 5,000 have died.

    Oh, I forgot, we can’t even have a single party democracy. Apparantly, the terrorists win if Ned Lamont defeats Joe Lieberman in a party primary.

  • Belies means contradicts. What you mean is that Hatch’s previous behavior is consistent with this current smear, not contradicts (belies) it.

  • I’ve reached the point in my paranoid spiral where I believe that, should the Dems be lucky enough to win back one – dare I dream it, TWO? – houses in November, Karl and the boys are more than demonic enough to blow up a few buses someplace, just to show everyone how right they were about the consequences of voting ‘D’. I imagine they wouldn’t be too hesitant about killing or maiming the people so poor they have to take public transportation, since they don’t seem that shaken up about the savage carnage they whipped up in Mesopotamia.

  • obviously, hatch is one of the scummiest of the gop senators, and that takes some doing!

    that said, i continue to believe that as important as it is to actually use congress to perform oversight on the bush administration, a dem congress is a very risky business without a dem president, too. there are many chickens still looking to come home to roost in the next 2.5 years, and the gop would love to have dems in power to blame….

  • When it comes to Republican senators from the West, I often pine for Alan Simpson of Wyoming–a stand-up conservative.

  • “…the man has unfortunately become an embarrassment to himself.”

    I would agree IF these clowns had any ability to feel the normal human emotions of shame, embarassment or remorse. From my observations, none of these emotions play any part in their lives.

    If any of us had wrought the carnage and destruction of human life that the Republican’ts have, could we sleep at night? I could not.

    Republican’ts – can’t feel any emotion for other people.

    Faux outrage does not count.

  • Say what you will, Orrin Hatch represents the views of his constituents (and the Mormon Church) perfectly. Utah is strange, mean and bitter place and Hatch captures that pretty well.

    Hatch’s fear-mongering kind of makes me miss former Missouri Senator (and AG) John Ashcroft. Hatch and Ashcroft are some of the very few politicians who can say the most outrageous, over-the-top shit about their opponents and both keep a straight face and mean it.

  • It’s not terrorists that Hatch should worry about.

    Once the Democrats overthrow the GOP, they’ll:
    open the borders to illegals,
    let criminals out of prison,
    force women to have abortions,
    pay poor people not to work,
    give jobs to unqualified minorites,
    put a 99% tax on all income over $25,000,
    turn Washington over to the United Nations,
    outlaw Christianity,
    and then indoctrinate heterosexual men to become flag-burning gay atheists.

  • The way I see it, you get terrorists by going after terrorists. You aid terrorists when you’re so geographically challenged that you invade the wrong country, and forget about getting terrorists.

    This should be right up the Repub alley. It’s sort of like “up or down vote”, “with us or against us.” I can almost hear GWB saying, “See, if you’re gonna git terrists, you hafta invade the right cunchree. I understand that, and the American people understand that.” Except, of course, he didn’t ever say that.

  • 2Manchu, Hatch not only is not concerned with letting criminals out of prison, he insists on it.

    If the prison is in another country and the criminal is a wealthy musician.

    If you’re low-income and unknown, probably best not to count on Hatch coming to your rescue.

  • As a Mormon Dem living in Utah, I object to being lumped in with the strange, mean and bitter. Hatch is an embarassment because he can’t see that constantly accusing the Democrats of acting in bad faith is merely a pretext for indulging in it himself. The problem with the LDS majority in this state is that there is an unspoken consensus that being a faithful member of the LDS church is synonymous with being a Republican. Democrats like myself are working to change that notion, based on substantive , explicit appeals and Howard Dean’s visit last year was a great boost. Not everyone in Utah likes Hatch. A lot of us have actively disliked him for many years and have supported every challenger the Ds put up against him, including Pete Ashdown this year.

  • I’ve reached the point in my paranoid spiral where I believe that, should the Dems be lucky enough to win back one – dare I dream it, TWO? – houses in November, Karl and the boys are more than demonic enough to blow up a few buses someplace, just to show everyone how right they were about the consequences of voting ‘D’.

    They won’t have to do it themselves. They’ve already enabled the conditions needed for it to happen by their inattention to actually improving secrurity here in America. Our ports and airplanes are not the recipients of any real efforts to make them safer. The only thing they really care about is lining their pockets. They are corrupt and engaged in criminal activities at every level of government. They’ll stop at nothing to continue in their contemptable ways. Nothing.

  • Hatch is what you get when you leave the egg under the chicken too long. Personally, I prefer my eggs over easy, sprinkled with oregano and pepper. Or a “junk” omelet (with everything) will do nicely, on occasion….

  • But didn’t they attack when the GOP was firmly in control?
    I don’t think the Presidential breifing was ‘Bin Laden determined to attack US only when Democrats are in control’. Or did I miss something?

  • As a Mormon Dem living in Utah, I object to being lumped in with the strange, mean and bitter.

    My apologies. There is of course a minority of Democrats and progressives in Utah whom Hatch doesn’t serve well. I was of course refering to the majority of Utahns who see fit to keep re-electing him.

  • Zeitgeist,

    Excellent point. I was referring to poor/minority criminals who would go after white women.
    And would be given firearms taken away from law-abiding citizens.

  • This is what I sent to Hatch (and, of course, posted on my blog)

    Although I do not agree with your positions most of the time, I still believed that you were a man of integrity. Unfortunately I was wrong. Your comment linking a Democratic victory in November with a terrorist attack is not only facially ridiculous, but beneath the dignity of a US Senator.

    Statements such as yours are common from the mouths of folks like Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, et al. But their increased use by people such as the Vice President, the President’s Press Secretary and yourself show how deeply unserious the Republican Party is about the “War on Terror.” To people like you this “war” is nothing more than a political tool used to bludgeon your opponents. How else can one explain the fact that nearly five years after 9-11 Osama Bin Laden is still on the loose; terrorist incidents are sky-rocketing, etc?

    You really ought to be ashamed of yourself and your party for exploiting the fears and prejudices of the American people. But, somehow I don’t believe that you are even capable of shame. Yet, you have the audacity to call yourself a man of faith. How pitiful.

  • God, I’d almost forgotten what an asshole Hatch has been about judicial nominations. That smarmy sonofabitch was all for using every trick in the book when it came to thwarting Bill Clinton and Senate Democrats, but once the White House went Republican, well, that’s a different story. I don’t know if he *invented* “It’s OK If You’re A Republican” but he certainly helped refine and spread it enough to get a co-credit.

    Sanctimonious fucking prick. If he choked to death on his pancake makeup, I’d laugh my ass off.

  • And why isn’t the reaction of Democratic leaders to bullshit like Hatch’s latest oral excrement that people like Hatch, who want to leave troops in Iraq, are trying to get them killed for nothing (seriously, if Hatch is going to call *US* terrorist-appeasers, why the fuck shouldn’t we unload both barrels right back at him and make those assholes play some rhetorical defense once in a fucking while?), while the Bush Administration refuses to send them after the *real* bad guys?

    Why isn’t our standard line stolen from a Kossack signature from a couple years ago: “Where’s Osama, bitch?”

  • Judging from Hatch’s effect of controlling everyone’s thoughts who has posted here, I am certain that he and the GOP will be equally effective in controlling the thoughts and actions of the terrorists. Trembling up here boss.

    And in case Hatch hasn’t figured it out, the terrorist’s M.O. is not a strike a day, unless they are in a country filled with bomb making material that the US invaded without ample force to secure. But Bush is GOP which makes him immune to charges from his fellow GOPers that he is making our forces vulnerable to terrorist attacks. If the GOP can’t protect our forces in Iraq, why should we trust them to defend us at home?

  • If the terrorists are just “waiting for the Democrats here to take control” as poor brain-dead Orin says. Then why in the hell, would they have pulled the airplane bombing stunt at this particular time?

    It appears to me, that if the terrorists really do give a rats ass about what party is in charge here in the USA . The timing of their attacks, demonstrate an inclination towards keeping the Republicans in power. After all, it’s common knowledge, the Republican party has become the best terrorist recuiter “money can buy.”. Actually the phrase “money can buy” is applicable to most everything the Republicans do.

  • scooterlib,

    I beg to differ, my friend. Osama was happy as a clam to see GW and the GOP hold power. It meant less chance of him getting caught.

  • 2Manchu, scooterlib is saying that al Qaeda wants Boy George II and the Republican’ts in power.

    scooterlib, you are putting periods where commas belong. It makes your writing hard to read.

  • Chris, great comment. The shrill shill for big business from Utah as been screwing the citizens for decades, yet those religious nuts keep electing him. Glad someone from Canada set us straight on universal health care.

  • What gives me hope, though, is that certain republicans have been using these smears for years, and now democrats aren’t running away. The media is coming around too, that CNN guy apologized to Lamont for calling him the “Al-Quaeda candidate” and let him rebut. And it’s frankly insulting to the intelligence of the American people to keep saying this while hoping they believe.

  • Getting back to Utah, there are probably a lot decent people who support both political sides there.

    But you gotta ask yourself, what do these 3 states have in common:

    Utah, Idaho, Wyoming.

    Well they are all in the same geographical area (pacific midwest), they are mainly rural and religious and they overwhelmingly support Bush.

    You often wonder, can’t these people feel the general mood in the country? Are they just backward and ignorant, or is it just their religious mindset.

    A lot of televangelists who predict the second coming will come after a “great battle for Jerusalem” get their support from these mainly rural folks. I think a lot of them want the US to get into an Amargeddon like conflict in the middle east so it can fulfill their desire for a another new world order, with Jesus at the helm.

    These are strange times.

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