If you live in a state, or even a Congressional district, that has the temerity to vote Democratic, Richard Armey thinks you are an enemy to be despoiled. You don’t have to believe me; he says so himself. [Note: Corrected to remove a reference to Tom Delay in place of Armey. Perhaps an enterprising reporter could ask DeLay whether he agrees with his predecessor.]
Thanks to DHinMI at Daily Kos for the link. DH also has news on the latest incarnation of this; apparently the Medicare bill takes money from the large urban teaching hospitals where all the medical progress gets made and sends it to rural hospitals instead.
What infuriates me about the Armey quote isn’t that he said it, but that I’d never heard of it before. Just imagine what the VWRC would have done with a comparable quote from a Democrat.
Historical footnote: When I learned about the “spoils system” in eighth grade American history, no one told me what “spoils” meant, and I don’t recall ever seeing the full original quote from Sen. William Marcy of New York, which would have made sense of the phrase. Marcy, a supporter of Van Buren, said, “To the victor belong the spoils of the enemy,” a reference to the looting of the corpses of enemy soldiers then permitted by the laws of war. Looting is now, of course, treated as a war crime, but Mr. Armey still say it’s an appropriate way to treat his fellow citizens. His friends still in positions of power are too busy acting on it to talk about it.
The Whigs were right to make a fuss about the use of that phrase then, and presumably would be ashamed of the behavior of the party that is their successor-in-business now.
Republican looters
Mark Kleiman notes that "Looting is now, of course, treated as a war crime, but Mr. DeLay still thinks it an appropriate way to treat his fellow citizens." This is