On Friday, Harold Ford said the following:
“There is not a better Congressman in Washington than Chris Shays,” said Ford, to a crowd of about 600 Fairfield University students and community members.
On Sunday, he said:
My comments were clearly taken out of context.
Clearly. Wanker.
On the web: One of my favorite candidates this cycle, Jim Himes. Put that in whatever context you like!
sort of Right. (Pardon the language)
If Harold Ford said…
“Of all the sh__y sh__y Republican congressmen in Washington… There is not a better Congressman in Washington than Chris Shays.”
Then maybe they’d be taking it out of context.
Harold Ford was an outstanding congressman! He stood up for what he believed in and didn’t back away from his principles. As for the Shay’s comment, that is his opinion. I could say that there is no better senator than Olympia Snowe, so what it is my opinion. Shays has an almost left leaning record and often votes with the democrats.
Ford’s doing this is beneficial to the Republican party in the long run–keeping a relatively reasonable (relative to the rest of the party) moderate congressperson in office. One could argue that encouraging moderate congresspersons in both parties is good for the nation as a whole.
On the other hand, that doesn’t mean that the Republicans won’t learn their lesson by completely falling to the Democrats and then having to figure out how to pick up the pieces of their broken party afterwords.