Talk:Grover Norquist

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Contents

[edit] Note

Note the additional info about foreign Islamic influence including attempts to name associate with bin laden.

lots of issues | leave me a message 21:12, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If it is true, why is the neutrality of the page being disputed? Truth is inherently neutral.

[edit] NPOV Asserted

But as usual for the astroturf sock, no justification in talk. --Gorgonzilla 21:49, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

"Truth is inherently neutral."

That is totally false! Printing true statements, while omitting other true statements is NOT inherently neutral at all!

I am a very novice editor. It seems to me the reference to him in the book "Screwing America" should not be in the biography. Grover Norquist is mentioned in dozens (if not hundreds) of books, with both negative and positive connotations. (Search for his name in Google Books to get an overview) By calling out this single reference, and within it's own heading, it overly emphasizes the negative. I did not delete the reference because I was not sure if it was better to discuss it here first. --subbob 10:11, 10 June 2007 (CST)

Good reasoning. I went ahead and deleted it. Steve Dufour 04:44, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New section under controversies

I added the section on Norquist comparing the estate tax to the Holocaust. I added a sentence summarizing Norquist's explanation of the quote from the primary source (that he wasn't comparing the events, just the morality behind the acts), so that the section wouldn't be taken out of context. It's still a pretty bad quote, though. Oh well, I hate the guy, and I think that I was lenient giving him the extra qualifying sentence.

Ihavenoheroes 16:45, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Norquist's legal team??

Lawyer2b removed this text, a decision I agree with, but I want to note it here (I've removed some leading spaces that made it look particularly poorly formated when the text was in the article):

As a prominent figure in republican politics Grover Norquist has frequently been the victim of attack (from those on the political left)using of guilt by association tactics.
was not created to be used as a tool to asassinate the charactor of those whose political beliefs differ from your own through the use of libel slander guilt by association
Allegations that are often supported by highly biased and partisan sources.
Wikepedia must have rules to prevent libelous and slanderous entries.
Legal team on behalf of Mr Norquist request the cease using such a prominent open source publication to attack his reputation and charactor.

This was posted by 24.17.65.82, who has no other posting history. Anyone think that this really was posted by the "legal team"? There is a process, I assume, for notifying the folks that run the website of real legal threat. I do find it hard to believe that a lawyer would write so badly (maybe a paralegal?), and misuse a legal term like slander (slander is SPOKEN, not WRITTEN). John Broughton 17:33, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I doubt any lawyer, let alone legal team, wrote that. "Charactor" "asassinat[ion]"? Lawyer2b 16:28, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Swedish heritage?

The name Norquist looks Swedish, does anyone know if he has Swedish heritage? /Slarre 02:46, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Abromoff in the head?

Really? That's why Norquist is notable? I'm not important enough to change it, but it seems like there ought to be a better place for "His close business and political ties to recently indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff are the subject of a current federal investigation."—Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.104.232.72 (talk • contribs)

If this article was at all fair/neutral to its subject, the "scandal" portion would be far down the article, much like in the Michael Moore article, in which his directing "work" is front and center as it should be, and only FAR down the article are the controversies (mitigated, however, with someone's clever use of the "Warning: weasel words" template to mute anything negative said about him.) - Nhprman List 05:42, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
I think you raise some good points. I was bold, and re-ordered the sections. -- Sholom 12:59, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
Good move. We'll see if it lasts. - Nhprman List 15:58, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Talking to Republicans it sounds to me as if they currently consider Norquist to be radioactive as a direct result of the Abramoff scandal. Norquist is no longer the Washington player he once was. His weekly lunches are no longer 'must attend' events for GOP lobbyists. The K-street project is no longer operating except in name. The scandals that Norquist has been involved in are directly related to the operation of K-street and his relationship to DeLay, Abramoff, Reed and other 'culture of corruption' figures. Even if Norquist had not been personally involved with Abramoff the Abramoff scandal is the principal reason for the demise of DeLay (it is generally agreed that it is the expected Abramoff related indictment rather than the current Texas indictment that led to Delay's resignation). And without ties to the DeLay machine Norquist is simply not a player.

The comparison to Michael Moore is not relevant. His films are unabashed polemics. There are plenty of people on the left who consider him a complete jack-ass. The fact that his work is controvertial is stated clearly in the header He is widely known for his outspoken, critical views on.... Unlike Norquist, Moore is not a target in the biggest Washington corruption scandal since Teapot Dome. none of Moore's close associates have been accused of corruption by a Senate Committee (Reed), indicted (DeLay), or pled guilty to corruption (Abramoff, Safavian, &ct). --Gorgonzilla 16:52, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Religious Allies

1. They are not "religious allies," they are Islamic terrorists.

2. This section is much more important than the Abramoff scandal, regardless of its scope.

A political operative with ties for foreign goverments that were on the State Department's list of state sponsors of terror, i.e. Libya, and two of the most destructive, powerful Islamic terror organizations on the planet, i.e. Hezbollah, and Hamas, is a lot more important than the corruption of Congress or the White House, which has existed-to some degree or another-since the Jackson administration. 72.68.172.229 13:40, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

On 20 Aug 2007, an unregistered editor deleted all the material linking Grover Norquist to convicted conspirator Sami Al-Arian. In the process, this deletion scrambled some following text and references. I have repaired the formatting damage, but I don't know enough about the issues surrounding the link between Norquist and al-Arian to know whether it is important or not. I elected to leave the material out, but it follows my signature here in case someone wants to reintroduce it. —Aetheling 16:30, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Norquist has been linked to Florida professor and Muslim activist Sami Al-Arian. On March 2, 2006, Al-Arian pled guilty to one count of conspiracy "to make or receive contributions of funds, goods or services to or for the benefit of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad."[1] He was sentenced to 57 months in prison, of which he had already served 38, and to then be deported.

  • In July, 2001, Norquist received an award from the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom (NCPPF), a civil liberties group headed by Al-Arian. This award was for Norquist’s work to abolish the use of secret intelligence evidence in terrorism cases, a position Bush had adopted in the 2000 campaign.[2] After the September 11th, 2001 attacks, the NCPPF urged Muslims not to cooperate with the U.S. government.[3]
  • Conservative activist Frank Gaffney, whose offices were on the same floor of the building where Norquist works, said that Al-Arian visited with Norquist in July 2002.[2]
  • Norquist's name was mentioned by al-Arian's lawyers during his 2005 trial.[4]

[edit] Ties to Al-Qaida?

The bottom-line here is, Norquist has no association to Al-Qaida, as some have asserted, period. [1] because the assertion that any of his associates do so is patently false. 19:44, 26 September 2006 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Billmunny (talk • contribs)

Okay, the link you provided seems fairly authoritative, and the paragraph in the wikipedia article was pretty speculative, so I've removed it. But I put the rest of the text that you deleted back in.
When you delete two entire sections, which (I haven't followed the links) seem reasonably well-sourced, you need to justify more than the inaccuracy of one paragraph within one of those sections. Again, posting an explanation here is appreciated (bottom of the page, though, and probably with a new section heading. Thanks. John Broughton | Talk 21:44, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I reformatted the source for the Bathtub Comment which I had incorrectly changed a long time ago. Simply tried to meet proper standards. Mcas 01:51, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that the three sentences under the heading "Alleged links to radical Islamists and terrorism" could be moved into the section above ("Religious allies"). The loaded heading "Alleged links to radical Islamists and terrorism" could then be removed. What does everyone else think? Rlorenc 20:41, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 2008

Who is Grover supporting? -Amit

Now, it seems like he is supporting Mr. Opportunist (i.e. Mitt Romney). Has it not come to his knowledge that business fees went up signficantly in Massachusetts to balance the budget? This was on MSNBC's "Tucker." -Amit, 03/02/07

[edit] rumors

I deleted the previous version of this section, applying WP:BLP, since all the sourcing there is (so far) might charitably be called "speculative rumor".

Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material — whether negative, positive, or just highly questionable — about living persons should be removed immediately and without discussion from Wikipedia articles,[2] talk pages, user pages, and project space.

So far, there really are only a couple of blog posts carrying this (albeit on very very high traffic blogs), there isn't even a 1/4th credible source repeating it as rumor yet, not even Wonkette. I know, y'all were trying to cautious, but I think even the speculative association is somewhat toxic.

While the rumor may be very plausible to many, that's not enough to overcome WP:BLP. We'll know soon enough anyway... Studerby 05:39, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Current WP:BLP problems with this article

Much of Grover_Norquist#Other_criticisms_and_controversies is not written from a neutral point of view, but as a partisan attack page. See, for example, my attempt to bring header of the "Anti-government approach" section into conformity with WP:NPOV by renaming it to "Limited-government approach", which, along with the rest of my edits, was summarily reverted. John254 12:43, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I think we, and the encyclopedia, will be best off if we work together instead of threatening each other. I would appreciate that a lot. I'm sorry if my revert of your major rewrite upset you. Reading Norquist's own words[2] it seems that he is an advocate of something stronger than just limited government. Perhaps his comments about drowning the government in a bathtub are entirely facetious, but all of his public statements and policy work seems to be extremely anti-federal government. Commitment to the Neutral Point of View also means avoiding weasel words. To take a cue from the ATR website, I believe the best way to describe his policy is "Minimal government approach". --User At Work 19:29, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Re-structured the 'minimizing Government Power' to remove the unnecessary speculation that the 'bathtub' comment was facetious. Placed the ATR mission as first, then provided quotes and supporting information below to exemplify his intent to minimize government power. --Mcas (talk) 22:19, 27 January 2008 (UTC)