Quote:
Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
I tried to ask a nice, unloaded question and all I get is shit. You guys were saying the loyalty oath thing was pretty major, so I didn't think I was asking for alot.
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Actually, I've never said a thing about the loyalty oath. When you asked if it had really happened, I was actually curious -- I thought that maybe relying on the Daily Show wasn't necessarily a good idea.
So, I did the Google search. The New Mexico story comes up a lot but there are stories from other places too, like a Cheney rally in Wyoming. Generally, the "oath" is a promise to vote for Bush. Does that qualify as a "loyalty oath"? Semanticists may disagree but the term does not seem inaccurate to me.
I'm not sure if you are suggesting that may be this didn't happen, but that would seem like an odd position since the RNC communications director defended the practice -- suggesting that it really happened, and more than once, and that the RNC thinks doing it is okay.
Candidates are free to limit the attendance at their events to the party faithful (freedom of association and all), but if you do that you might as well hire actors to attend the events and cheer. For someone who billed himself as a "uniter", it seems a particularly silly practice.
