"Barbara Boxer Steps into Spotlight" --good AP article!

[marions ghost]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=5&u=/ap/2...

Sen. Barbara Boxer Steps Into Spotlight
January 29, 2005 5:32 PM EST

WASHINGTON - Sen. Barbara Boxer has always spoken up, but the California Democrat seems to have gotten a lot louder lately. Her opposition to Condoleezza Rice's secretary of state nomination was so combative that it was parodied on Saturday Night Live. That came on the heels of her decision to sign onto a House member's complaint about Ohio voting problems, forcing Congress to debate them before certifying President Bush's re-election victory.

She's being touted on liberal blogs as the Democrats' best hope for president in 2008. Conservatives are excoriating her as - in House Minority Leader Tom DeLay's phrase - the leader of the "'X-Files' wing" of the Democratic Party.

But Boxer says she is just standing up for what she believes.

"I've always been this way," she says, "and I'm trying to figure out exactly why people suddenly find this to be interesting, you know. Somehow I have touched something inside people, and I have not ever had this happen before. The only thing I can think, after reading what people said, is a feeling that I'm asking the kind of questions and saying the kind of things that they are feeling."

Maybe she's becoming a spokeswoman, or even a symbol, for voters who oppose the Iraq war or feel shut out by the Bush administration. Maybe, with the Democratic Party at sea after November's election losses, some people sense a leadership void and are looking to her to fill it.

(more)...

[Cha]

1. This is good! But, it's only a "2.74"..

with "404" votes!

And the bushgoons are the alien, pod people, here.

[CanOfWhoopAss]

4. Did my part to up the # closer to 3.0

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. the leader of the "'X-Files' wing" of the Democratic Party.

Tom Delay needs to stfu and do his job. He's no prize himself. Just because he can get the GOP to forgive, cover and push into the memory hole the corruption scandal that he is starring in doesn't give him the right to criticize ANYONE. He should be standing in the corner or writing a thousand times on the blackboard, I will not be a corrupt politician and use my position for personal gain.... Halfwit.

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/11/303702.shtml
Today House Republicans voted in a close door meeting to allow Majority Leader to keep his leadership status if indicted on criminal charges for political corruption. This would land a normal person like you or me in prison for over two years.

[rodeodance]

3. current average rating is 2.80 with 410 vote(s).

[MelissaB]

5. I signed up to rate this up.

[marions ghost]

7. Tom Delay knows...

that the X-Files is where the votes went.

[Helga Scow Stern]

6. Good article. I rated it up. n/t

[zann725]

8. Similar article appears on front page of Sunday LAT entitled,

"Boxer Not Willing to Pull Punches." (The article coincidentally appeared right BENEATH an article (w/pic) of Schwartznegger.)
Could the Repugs feel threatened?

[hootinholler]

9. now average rating is 2.90 with 887 vote(s) n/t

-Hoot

[RockStar]

10. Barbara Boxer Rocks

[Peace Patriot]

11. Shows you what a clueless hick Tom DeLay is...

Everybody knows "the truth is out there...".

[Radio_Lady]

12. Received letter from Barbara Boxer...

Thanking us for 4,500 roses received for Valentine's Day.

Have you received a letter? Hope she sent some of them to Washington DC hospitals, etc....

[SaveAmerica]

13. Wasn't Delay's'X-Files wing of the dem party' comment in the

section that was deleted from the debates that day? I'm getting a 'document not found' when I try to open this so I can't see who the author is. Sounds like they've been keeping up with things.

[SaveAmerica]

14. I definitely like the journalist, she's been paying attention

Rep. Issa 'doesn't think attack dogs are ever useful' - if they're dems, and I love that Boxer loved the SNL skit about her. This is from the bottom of the article:

By ERICA WERNER Associated Press Writer


"I don't think attack dogs are ever useful," said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who lost a 1998 GOP primary election for the chance to run against Boxer.

But lately it's been Boxer in the headlines, sought out by reporters from The New York Times and Rolling Stone, and parodied on SNL.

In the skit that aired Jan. 22, Boxer, as portrayed by actress Amy Poehler, used a series of props to interrogate Rice among them a packet of baloney, a poster of the number zero (representing weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq), and a bar graph with one barely visible bar ("the truth") and another bar stretching the length of the chart ("what you say").

Boxer, who did arm herself with several enlarged maps and quotations during Rice's confirmation hearing, loved the skit. "They really nailed me," she says. "It was the funniest thing I've ever seen."