Thursday, January 10, 2008

Faleomavaega Praises Uncle Ho; Creates Firestorm

On yet another overseas junket, our wandering delegate, Faleomavaega, this time turns up in Hanoi in December, 2007, where he sings the praises of Ho Chi Minh as a great leader who only wanted to end French oppression of his people.

Needless to say, this characterization of Uncle Ho did not go down too well with American Samoa's sizable community of Vietnam veterans. The rhetoric has been incendiary.

Unlike the situation in which then-Sen. Leader Trent Lott, in praising Strom Thurmond
on his 100th birthday, offhandedly and jokingly suggested the country should have elected the then-segregationist president in 1948, Faleomavaega issued a press release (on Pearl harbor Day, no less)with his pro-Ho remarks.

Not terribly bright, but it gets better. After a couple of sharply worded letters to the editor criticing the delegate's position on Ho, Faleomavaega issues another press release containing his own letter to the editor in response, in which he fully defends his prasie of Ho. Not to let an opportunity go by, in the same letter he slurs President Bush and Vice President Cheney over their military service or lack thereof. So much for the passionate bi-partisanship he so fervently avowed during his years in the wilderness when Democrats controlled neither Congress nor the White House--although last time I looked, Bush/Cheney has a year to go.

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