It is nice to see that in a sober moment, Joe Cryan decided to not follow in the family footsteps and used words instead of fists.

And deal with the anti  semites in your party

"Cryan said, "Senator Cardinale's campaign tactics were disgraceful and divisive."

 I can not stop laughing at Cryan's crying....what a joke.

to get over it! Crying over your party's losses does not change the outcome!

Jihad Gerry may have his disgracefully won seat.

His legacy will be of false charges, lies and a total disappointment to all that is American.

Let's see him try to get something passed in Trenton. The only thing he'll get passed is his requests.

Below is the official press release issued by the NJ Democratic Party in response to statements and allegation made by Republican State Senator Gerald Cardinale.( it is not yet on PolitckerNJ) You will find related articles on the website, www.aafusa.org . I do not want to sound like an ungrateful brat (which I am not). I welcome the belated announcement and I consider it  an important press release considering the amount of effort some of us have put into producing it. However, it does not mention the victim, namely the ADC and the Arab community. It should have and for this omission,  we give it a "D". Are we being charged on a per word count basis? Was the press release a form letter they pulled out but forget to fill in the pertinent  details? Judge for yourself.
Interestingly, the Record covered the press release and in it Cardinale  unrelentingly affirmed his declared positions.

_______________________________________

For immediate Release

THE DEMOCRATIC STATE COMMITTEE

____________________________________________

            Date: November 14, 2007Contact: Richard McGrath 609 392 3367
 

    Cryan Condemns Cardinale's Political Comments

        Trenton -  Joseph Cryan, Chairman of the Democratic State Committee, issued the following statement today condemning the divisive political comments by Senator Cardinale and dismissing Cardinale's post-election explanations as empty excuses:

      "Senator Cardinale's campaign tactics were disgraceful and divisive. Inflammatory rhetoric that demonizes any ethnic, racial or religious community should not be part of any political dialogue. There are no good excuses for smear tactics and no good reasons for hateful language. He should put an end to this and see that it isn't repeated." 

Here the Record's article on the press release.

It is par for the course that the Dems are the ones doing the smearing here. They label Cardinale's release as "hateful" when he was raising a legitimate question based on undisputed facts.

If Cardinale had a dental partner who was a contributor/advisor and affiliated in an equivalent organization, you can bet the Dems and the Record would have been all over it.

The flaw in Cryan's facade of faux indignation is that Cardinale's allegations were directed at a particular person with ties to a particular group that some find to be particularly objectionable.  In case you haven't guessed, the key word here is "particular".  Cardinale clearly referenced an individual and an organization, not an entire community. 

The idiocy inherent in Cryan's histrionics is both palpable and readily demonstrated.  For instance, if a Dem attacks Rudy Giuliani for accepting Pat Robertson's endorsement (which they have ad nauseum) is this a broadside on all of Christendom?  Of course not.  It is an attempt to link Rudy with a specific public figure who's views are objectionable to a portion of the electorate and to exploit said relationship to gain political advantage.   

Moreover, following Cryan's exercise in illogic, we should no longer refer to Al Qaeda or Hamas as radical Islamic terrorist organizations.  The mere reference of the religious bent of these groups would, according to the standard enunciated by our state's newest czar of political correctness, impugn an entire ethnic, religious and cultural body of innocents.  So let's see where we go from here ... we can hence forth refer to Bin laden and company as the bearded bad boys from boom boom town. 

The enemy in the war on terror is well defined and drawn along religious lines.  It is disingenuous, repugnant and emminently bigoted to claim that Muslims are necessarily sympathetic to terrorism due to their religious beliefs.  If anything, Muslims are more often than not the very victims of these perverse acts.  Yet it is equally specious to refuse to recognize and act upon reality as it exists outside the political spin room.  Cryan and his ilk have effectively ceded the rights of Americans to live both freely and securely if they are willing to sacrifice common sense at the altar of political correctness. 

That said, I'm sure when we are once again visited with the terrorist atrocities typefied by 9/11, Cryan can take consolation that he never offended anyone's sensibilities.  

...that are indefensible.

Legalistic mumbo jumbo doesn't cut it. There is zero evidence that anyone directly associated with Cardinale's opponent was/is a terrorist or a sympathizer of/for terrorism.

This is a key issue in that is is virtually the ONLY "rationale" for the "victories" of Bush & Co in federal elections. It seems that Rudy G is planning to win the presidency on the "strength" of his "heroism" at ground zero.

It's pure unadulterated McCarthyism and I'm sad to say; it's been working. Too many Democrats have been cowed by these obscenely un-American tactics.

This President and Republicans across the board have milked 9-11 as if it were a political action committee.

Meanwhile, virtually all that Bush & Co have done since 9-11 has fanned the flames of hatred for the USA throughout the world.

It's almost as if Bin Laden and Bush were in some perverse unconscious sense, allies. Bush's policies are the best recruiting tools imaginable for Al Qaeda!

If anything, Cryan's rebuke of Cardinale was way too mild. That "card" should never have been played.

Do we really want to be a nation/state living in perpetual fear/terror just so a particular political party and a bunch of contractors can continue to accumulate power and wealth?

From Frederick Douglass

If there is no struggle there is no progress......Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

Although apologists for anti-Islamic, anti-democratic positions such as "Martin Two" (love the flattering copying, by the way) may live in a world where any Muslim is a terrorist, most of us think otherwise, and his and Sen. Cardinale's hateful comments only further the causes of modern McCarthyism, as Nick rightly mentioned, and make false equivalences between Islam and terrorism. In "Martin Two'"s skewed worldview -- to use her or his term,  it is "specious" -- Ariyan has ties to a terrorist organization only through the broadest comparison possible, Cardinale is justified cashing in on an anti-Islamic gesture towards his opponent, and, presumably, the war in Iraq is a religious one against the forces of radical Islam. Pres. Bush has his most adoring ideologue right here in N.J. in the person of "Martin Two," presumably!

Between the 8th district Republicans terrorist-sliming of Riley and Cardinale's same venture with Ariyan, one is left wondering whether basic decency and human rights are ideals that the far right abandoned quite a long time ago,