Reply #7: Sic semper moronus.

[Octafish]

When it comes to these folks, it's hard to separate the facts from the guilty. We're Democrats and we believe all accused by the State deserve to have a fair trial. Toward that day, here's some information:



ACES AND PLACES

Ethnic massacre of '88 still haunts GOP

by Myron B. Kuropas

Regardless of what one believes about President Bill Clinton, there's no denying he's a superb campaigner. That's why he won the ethnic vote in 1992 and again in 1996. While Bob Dole's people didn't get around to appointing an ethnic campaign chairman until October 1996, President Clinton had his ethnic team in place and rolling by the end of 1995.

What ever happened to the GOP ethnic lock of the 1980s? I believe it started to unravel during the 1988 Bush/Dukakis campaign when eight ethnic activists (including two Ukrainians) were dumped from the Bush election team for what Bush people themselves called "unsubstantiated allegations." In my column of October 16, 1988, I called the development "an abomination."

The debacle began in July 1988, when GOP candidate George Bush attended a dinner sponsored by the Captive Nations Committee of Detroit and the American Friends of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations at the Ukrainian community center in Warren, Mich. In his introduction of Mr. Bush, Bohdan Fedorak, a Bush campaign activist appointed by Ukrainian campaign chairman Taras Szmagala, stated: "It is important that the United States stand firm and not allow to influence and defame our communities, achievements and the heroic struggle for national independence which many of our people have fought for. Specifically, the Justice Department Office of Special Investigations and their collaboration with the Soviet authorities, and deportation of people to the Soviet Union are two issues which we strongly oppose."

That statement helped convince Bush campaign strategists that Mr. Fedorak should resign from the campaign along with seven others, including then-UCCA President Ignatius Bilinsky. All had been active in the National Republican Heritage Groups Council (NRHGC), for years an effective grassroots arm of the Republican National Committee (RNC).

CONTINUED...

http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/1997/139715.shtml