Montana — you’ve got a winner in Conrad. (SFGate):
Republican Sen. Conrad Burns, whose recent comments have stirred controversy, says the United States is up against a faceless enemy of terrorists who “drive taxi cabs in the daytime and kill at night.”
During a fundraiser Wednesday with first lady Laura Bush, the three-term Montana senator talked about terrorism, tax cuts and the money he has brought to his state. Burns is one of the more vulnerable Senate incumbents, facing a tough challenge from Democrat Jon Tester.
He has drawn criticism in recent weeks for calling his house painter a “nice little Guatemalan man” during a June speech. Burns, whose re-election campaign is pressing for tighter immigration controls, also suggested that the man might be an illegal immigrant. The campaign later said the worker is legal.
…”In Washington, Senator Burns is a respected voice on the issues facing rural communities in Montana and across the nation,” Bush said.
17 Responses to “Conrad Burns and those swarthy killer cabbies”
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Burns is an endless embarrassment to this state. I can’t believe he’s been elected three times. Especially after he sided with W.R. Grace over the people of Libby. He even carried Libby in 2000!
His idiotic, racist statements are stunning, but to some extent, they play well at home in a state with minimal racial diversity. The largest non-white minority in Montana is Native American. Folks who grow up here only see Black people and Muslims on TV. So when he talks out the wrong side of his digestive tract, he’s counting on the ignorance of the rest of us.
I hope, I hope, I hope the people of this state are finally going to get wise to what a liability this guy is. The only thing he really has to run on is the fact that he brings home the pork.
Oh my. I hope he gets picketed by cab drivers.
Speaking as a Montanan, there’s no way in Hell Burns is gonna win at this point. Most people are so pissed at him for numerous reasons that his already iffy percentage in the polls has taken a nose dive in the last few weeks. He’s utterly incompetent in every way shape and form.
Sigh, I’ll be so glad when all this is over and they announce Jon Tester as the winner. I can hardly wait to watch Conrad Burns slink off with his tail between his legs.
Aw shit, have they let Travis Bickle have a hack license again? or is this guy just, ah, channelling DeNiro?Still, at least they dont have them brown fellahs driving the cabs.
Certainly not in Montana, they don’t.
Damn, you beat me to the Bickle reference. But I think Travis drove cabs at night and killed people during the day.
Seriously, is “taxi driver” now code for “brown person” in the same way that “Hollywood liberal” means “Jew”?
To be fair to Burns, there are a lot of D.C. taxi drivers bent on destroying America, or at least that part of it that gets in their way and doesn’t respond to maniacal horn honking.
Yesterday, I was getting a ride home from the hospital, and I remember the cabbie yelling and screaming and honking and gesticulating madly at some people who were in his way, and by “some people” I mean a hockey rink. I also seem to remember the skaters, and building, diving for cover at the last second.
(Although, given the amount of painkillers they’d given me at the hospital, I also remember being followed at one point by a 30 foot tall Gary Burghoff riding a day-glo yellow giant flying dolphin, so my recollections should perhaps not be relied upon too closely here.)
I want to turn that quote into a 1940s-era pulp comic book cover. There will be some manner of lusty dame, a shadowy figure, maybe a doorway…and then big block print: They drive cabs during the day…but they KILL at NIGHT!
Told in exciting new PICTO-FICTION.
Oh wait. I’m pretty sure that already exists. God. Conrad Burns is not only a racist embarrassment, but also a lamewad.
Thrilled to know a few other Montanans are also Pandagonians.
I don’t get out a lot….or stick around much
But just to get thoroughly aboard….Burns does totally suck contaminated cake.
[jas/Reed Point/hastem@ttc-cmc.net]
THey have cabs in Montana? They have cars in Montana? I thought y’all still got around on horses (or asses in the case of the Senator)*insert Douglas Adams quote here*
Good, a few other Montanans already chimed in, so I don’t have to hang my head in shame and apologize to the world for my state giving that idiot boy a soapbox. I cannot WAIT for him to lose in November. Believe me, in Conrad terms, the above quote is minor - it barely approaches the high level of offensiveness he is capable of.
I still can’t believe Tester hasn’t dropped an ad mentioning Burns vote to give amnesty to Insurgents in Iraq, that seems like it would just kill Conrad’s base, but as other people have said at this point Conrad is really just destroying himself: the racist stuff might not kill him, but the Fire fighter diss pissed a lot of people off.
Montanans, do not count your chickens. Burns is strangely bulletproof. He’s like some kind of electoral undead; animated by mysterious dark forces, he can’t be stopped by ordinary means.
Consider the USA Today/Gallup poll posted on dKos today:
Do we all understand the implication of that? Things don’t look as bad for Burns as one would think. The results are likely to swing based on voter turnout. So get out the damn vote. Find those people in your workplace, or your neighborhood, or your church, or at Lucky Lil’s, who are smart enough to understand how awful Conrad Burns is for this state, but not motivated enough to think voting matters.
Jon Tester is a great candidate. He’s even better than then-newcomer Brian Schweitzer was in 2000, and Conrad damned near lost that one. The fact that he didn’t shakes my confidence greatly. There’s a lot of folks in this state who, for whatever reason, seem to like this good old boy. They will prevail again if we who know better do not get off our asses and reach out beyond our comfort zone of like-minded, politically motivated friends.
[disclaimer: I suck at activism. I talk a much better game than I play]
Just checking here: has Montana gone over to “electronic balloting” or not?
Long before the Magic Diebold Machine, of course, it has been possible for incredibly awful politicians to get elected and repeatedly re-elected in this great nation. It comes down to layer after layer of manipulation–a manipulated press, governed by corporate self-interest; national politics governed by posturing spectaculars that distract from hard-core interests; state and local ditto; manipulation of voter rolls (a big factor here is that felons, I mean here folks who have served their time and been released from the criminal justice system, are disfranchised in many places and in turn different classes of people are more or less likely to be apprehended and convicted); manipulation of turnout, especially via selective intimidation. Adding a layer of outright alteration of the actual votes cast that get through all those filters is a largely new thing though with older balloting methods it used to happen too. It is largely and ultimately a matter of political will that fraud can triumph.
But I do think that Republican leadership has been acting more and more these past five years like it simply does not matter how blatant and well-known and understood their offenses against their nominal constituencies are, somehow or other they will always be “vindicated” at the polls, no matter what they have done.
I’ll change my tune on this if there is in fact a Democratic landslide this Novemeber. Maybe. It may turn out that the particular Democrats we get will act much the same; if so, another round goes to the corporate machine and on down the slippery slope to Hell we slide. But I do figure that if the fix is in, the Rs will hold on to a strategic if slim official majority. I don’t think they _want_ more; this way they can still blame Democrats and leftists in general for everything, while being accountable for nothing.
But if they lose that margin of control, I will once again have some hope of a due-process way out of this nightmare.
It is always gratifying to hear just how whacked out these whackos are, and how many people do see through them, even if it does turn out to be irrelevant to official outcomes.
Oh Conrad, tell us more. November is far far away and whether you are attacking elite units of figherfighters as doing “piss poor” work, making racially abusive remarks regarding non-whites (e.g. “rag heads” and other associated comments about “slave actions”, etc.), or minimizing all your Abramoff money, we still have much to benefit and be entertained by what you can say. Please keep talking!!!
If Tester does not make any major mistakes and Conrad still win re-election, the nation should ask: What does it take to beat an incumbent Senator?
Get out the Anti-Conrad vote!