Shays starts to crack under pressure

October 13, 2006

I imagine it’s pretty tough being a 10-term incumbent congressman facing a very tough re-election fight in a difficult campaign environment, but I don’t think Rep. Chris Shays (R-Conn.) is handling the pressure well.

Earlier this week, Shays highlighted what’s become of House Republican standards when he compared the Mark Foley scandal to Chappaquiddick, saying, “I know the speaker didn’t go over a bridge and leave a young person in the water, and then have a press conference the next day…. Dennis Hastert didn’t kill anybody.”

It was not only a cheap shot, it was an odd response to an ongoing political controversy. By Shays’ reasoning, House Republicans simply covered up for a sexual predator who was preying on teenagers for whom Congress was responsible. But as long as no one actually died, there’s no reason for voters to be upset. (New campaign slogan — “Vote GOP: You can’t accuse us of murder.”)

Today, whatever was left of Shays’ composure effectively disappeared.

Republican Rep. Christopher Shays said Friday the Abu Ghraib prison abuses were more about pornography than torture.

The congressman, who is in a tough re-election fight, said a National Guard unit was primarily responsible for the abuses.

“It was a National Guard unit run amok,” Shays said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “It was torture because sex abuse is torture. It was gross and despicable … This is more about pornography than torture.”

He really did say this; there’s even a video of it.

What’s more, this comes on the heels of Shays insisting, “Now I’ve seen what happened in Abu Ghraib, and Abu Ghraib was not torture.”

I mention this, not just because the comments are so jaw-dropping, but also to demonstrate what’s happened to congressional Republicans. Shays is one of the least conservative members of the House GOP caucus. By most standards, he’s a moderate who is willing to balk, publicly, at some of the more egregious excesses of the Republican leadership.

If Shays has gone off the deep end, what does it say about the rest of the party? If those who are supposed to be the most sensible start making painfully ridiculous arguments in public, what hope is there for the GOP?

To be fair, I should note that Shays seems to realize he went too far.

Shays said Friday he wished he had more fully explained his views at the debate. “I was maybe not as expansive as I needed to be,” he said. “Of course, the degrading of anyone is torture. We need to deal with it.”

Shays said his debate comments reflected the disturbing photos he has seen of Abu Ghraib abuses: “Naked Iraqis, naked Americans, Americans having sex … gross and despicable pictures.”

Shays is waging a bruising re-election fight against [Westport selectwoman Diane] Farrell.

“Once again, Chris is trying to back away from an earlier statement because it’s politically expedient,” Farrell said Friday. “It’s typical Chris.”

If Shays is falling apart, panic must really be setting in.

“By Shays’ reasoning, House Republicans simply covered up for a sexual predator who was preying on teenagers for whom Congress was responsible. But as long as no one actually died, there’s no reason for voters to be upset”

Maybe his point was simply there is scum on BOTH sides of the aisle.

  • All I can say as a Ct voter is TERM LIMITS. I never thought I would say that, but with all the crap going on we need to start thinking Term Limits. These guys will do anything not to lose their power.

  • Bringing up Kennedy’s car accident, in 1968 no less, has got to be the most desperate, absurd comparison to Foleygate yet.

    How is a car accident nearly 40 years ago anything like the GOp covering up the fact that they have had a congressman actively pursuing sex– virtual and real– with teenage congressional pages for a decade or so?

  • Shays is having a real problem with Abu Ghraib. First of all, the pictures were taken to blackmail the prisoners. The abuse was both physical and psychological (if you don’t think a dog snapping at your genitals from one foot away doesn’t have physical effects you’ve never been menaced by a dog). The stress positions and having a prisoners stand on a box for extended periods of time are torture.

    And all of this was done at the behast of regular Army Military Intelligence Branch soldiers and officers, and was not just a flight of fancy for the National Guard Military Police unit stationed at the prison.

    As for Shays point about Kennedy, Kennedy’s “action” or lack thereof, is known to his voters and they are happy to return him every six years. Stubbs got reelected after facing censure (actually, turning his back) from the House.

    Mark Foley resigned (as he had been inclined to do) the minute the Sext-Messages story broke. Coach Hastert is being critized for not investigating Foley. Tip O’Neil did investigate Stubbs. That’s the difference you “Moderate Republican’t Moron”.

  • While Shays is obviously wrong that Abu Ghraib “wasn’t torture,” the “sex ring” claim is rooted in fact. Recall that Lynndie England got pregnant while in Iraq – it was reported that she had sex with at least two of the guards in her unit, and there were hints that she was a “pass around girl.”

    Many of the members of that unit live in WV, but joined a National Guard unit in Cumberland, MD. I find myself in Cumberland 2-3 times a year, and in speaking with a friend who is sympathetic to Bush and the guards, he echoed the notion that the entire unit was “overly friendly.”

    So when I watch that video, I hear him saying “it wasn’t torture as a part of interrogation, it was perverts having fun.” However, the record is clear that interrogations were conducted, and torture was used.

  • Shays was just another “moderate until you need him” Republican who said some nice things sometimes but then voted the party line when it came to the crunch. That’s why he’s going nuts because his actual voting record is no help to him at all this time around.

  • Was he trying to do a little subliminal messaging on the cheap? His handlers need to tell him that if people can actually hear him saying “Naked, naked, sex, porn, sex” over and over again, it doesn’t work.

    The GOP continues to become a parody of itself. It’s almost Zen.

  • I was 11 years old when Ted Kennedy drove his car off the bridge at Chappaquiddick, and Mary Jo Kopechne died. I cannot claim any deep knowledge of this incident, but I do know that many people thought then and still think today that there was a cover up that kept Kennedy from any serious contemporaneous accountability for her death (de-facto disqualification for the Presidency does not count). Kennedy has a record of fine public service, but he also has the baggage of his personal behavior, which has not always been (IMO) admirable. One of the most devastating and memorable political cartoons I remember related to one of the political conventions at which Kennedy was contending for the Democratic nomination (sorry I do not remember which year). It portrayed Mary Jo Kopechne’s decaying and water-logged corpse as a delegate to the convention from Chappaquiddick. It was a reminder that resolution of the incident was not satisfactory to at least some of the public.

    Kennedy’s ideological opponents and people like my mother, who like neither his politics nor the idea that his position as a Kennedy may have enabled him to escape a situation for which “average people” would have been held more to account, will be forever baffled / disgusted that Massachusetts voters have returned Ted Kennedy to the Senate for nearly 40 years after Chappaquiddick. It will always serve as the ultimate political “pass” in their minds. Hence, Chris Shays invokes this incident as a foil to Denny Hastert’s behavior. I believe its potency will be reality until Ted Kennedy no longer serves in the Senate.

  • TuiMel,

    “I believe its potency will be reality until Ted Kennedy no longer serves in the Senate.”

    Perhaps you need to rethink this. You need look no further than Bill Clinton and all of the things that are his fault eventhough he is not the POTUS and has not been for years.

    As long as someone remembers the name Chappaquiddick the GOP will sling this crap. If Ted stood on the Capitol steps today and admitted it, resigned, then proceeded to put himself in prison to punish himself this issue would not go away.

    Hey JRSJr. do you have an answer to any question that isn’t basically both sides do it? There is an overwhelming trail of scandal and misdeeds leading from today back to when the GOP took Congress. They are off their nut on nearly every issue. They have attacked the fabric of our country for profit anf power. The fact that Teddy K may have been involved in motor-vehicular homoside nearly 40 years ago does not change anything about the GOP.

  • Moderate schmoderate – Shays and all the other “good” Republicans all vote the party line when it counts – they only show independence on things where their vote doesn’t matter. They remind me of a black militant’s comment 40 years ago about why he preferred dealing with white conservatives than white liberals, “because that way there’s no doubt who the enemy is.”

    “The only ‘good Republicans’ are pushing up daisies.” May Shays R.I.P. soon.

  • Lets review Ted Kennedy’s car accident:

    40 years ago cars did not have air bags, they only had lap belts that few people used, and only stopped the middle of your body from moving. Your head was free to bounce off anything and everything within range. Now, did we mention that the car flew off a bridge? If Ted didn’t walk (crawl) away from the car without a serious concussion, then he was a very lucky man. I doubt he knew what happened for days after; if he could ever remember it.

  • Hi MN Progressive:
    I was trying to say that for some people the potency of Chappaquiddick will never diminish. [I have found this to be true among Republicans and some Democrats in my acquaintance.] I felt that Kennedy’s position in the Senate keeps him in “target” range. To me this is one explanation for Shays invoking Chappaquiddick to try to distract from Hastert’s performance vis a vis Foley. I’m simply not surprised by it. Perhaps you are correct that Chappaquiddick will continue to be a weapon long after Ted Kennedy passes from the active political scene. Is this what I need to re-think or something else?

    That said, I cannot honestly say that – if this incident was in the past of GWB or Bill Frist or George Allen (to name a few examples)- it would not have everlasting potency for me. So, although none of these men have public service records on a par with Ted Kennedy, I’m not outraged either. If that makes me misguided, so be it.

  • “Maybe his point was simply there is scum on BOTH sides of the aisle.” — JRS Jr, @1

    Dahlink, there’s NO WAY the Republiscum would have let us cover upsomething that tasty for 12 yrs. They have their microscopes and telescopes trained on us all the time and have been doing scum-digging, intensively, for the past 18months according to their own statements. What they’ve been unable to unearth simply isn’t there.

    Both sides of the aisle? Perhaps… In 1:5 ratio, and that only on the basis of what’s knwn. Should Dems ever start digging-for-dirt with the same dedication, it’d likely end up being 1:10.

  • People who for whatever reason don’t want to see the truth can be acutely hostile to it and shrill in their denunciation of it. They frequently turn their venomous antagonism on whoever dares point out that truth.

  • Shays is displaying the most severe symptoms to date of what has been a growing epidemic among Republicans: the kool aid overdose. The incoherence, the mad look in the eyes, the sense of panic about a coming retribution and feelings of powerlessness … he has it bad.

  • “I felt that Kennedy’s position in the Senate keeps him in “target” range.” – TuiMel

    Considering that the republican’ts are still quoting Stubbs over the Foley scandal, and Stubbs has been retired for years, the assertion that if Kennedy retired he’d be forgotten holds no water.

    What Shays fails to understand is there is no living person in the Senate today who is responsible for failing to investigate Kennedy. Hastert and all the Republican’t House Leadership are responsible for failing to investigate Foley’s conduct despite numerous warnings.

  • The cult of personality accounts for part of the reason that MA voters return Ted Kennedy to the Senate. The voters there also realize that the accident resulting in Mary Jo Kopechne’s death was not and still isn’t an issue facing the nation much the same way Clinton and Lewinsky’s behavior isn’t an issue of national import even as the Repubtards continue to use both situations to try and illustrate their non-existent “moral fitness”. As Russ Feingold said already, “Foley is bad but he’s no Iraq.” or words to that effect. Republican douchebags can be expected to wield Kopechne’s death as though it were some kind of trump card to be used against Democrats. At this point the issue is only important to the minority of morons on the right that still consider the issue germaine. You know the ones I’m talking about, the ones Shays was speaking to when he said Abu Ghraib doesn’t constitute torture.

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