 As many of his constituents continue to wonder "Where is Parker?" he was once again "the man who wasn't there" for the meeting - and probably also "the man who wasn't missed" - although he was invited.
Griffith was invited to Tuesday's meeting along with announced Republican challengers Mo Brooks and Les Phillip, but he was in Washington, D.C., a spokeswoman said.
Perhaps he really was - this time. Although that was his excuse when he didn't attend the anti-abortion rally in January. He told the Huntsville Times that Congress was in session, but it was MLK Day so Congress was NOT in session - and he was at the Twickenham Republican Women the next morning. So the Republican candidates didn't have Parker to kick around in person, but they still talked enough trash about him to cover the guy in garbage for the next 20 years. Madison County Commissioner, Mo Brooks, who has a reputation for being a bit of a bomb-thrower at times, was a rare voice of moderation: Brooks also said he'd be professional if elected. "I won't tell the speaker she needs mental health care," he said, referring to a comment by Griffith about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last year.
Well, at least Parker Griffith was successful at one thing: lowering the standards for debate in the 5th District. Brooks left the red meat invective to Les Phillip: "We need to engage the left," Phillip said. "Everything they have done is wrong." Phillip, a former Navy pilot, got applause when he said his training had included waterboarding, "which isn't that bad, actually."
Everything, Les? Really? Certainly, I'll want as my Congressman a guy who thinks that war crimes "aren't all that bad." I guess, once again, our standards are lower now, because after World War II Leading members of Japan's military and government elite were charged, among their many other crimes, with torturing Allied military personnel and civilians. The principal proof upon which their torture convictions were based was conduct that we would now call waterboarding.
Mo Brooks may be a bit nutty on some issues and fixated on the "evils of Socialism," but Phillip's blithe disregard of international law and basic human standards of conduct add a unwelcome bit of sociopathy into an already-toxic mix of paranoia, xenophobia, and self-righteous no-nothing rhetoric. Finally, in an entertaining twist, we find that some local Republicans are stalking local GOP Representative, Howard Sanderford: In the local House race, Sanderford, who has been in the Legislature since 1989, now faces a primary challenge from a member of the county and state GOP executive committees. [...] Another Sanderford GOP primary challenger is David Pinkleton, a 2005 Grissom High School graduate who is a senior at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
Anyone know why some local Republicans are dissatisfied with Sanderford? |
Alabama PACT killer, Kay Ivey, 
