Thread: Ted Strickland turned chicken

http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Feb20/ ... aq,00.html
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Gov. Ted Strickland said he would welcome Iraqi refugees to Ohio, clarifying his comments last week were meant to express frustration with President Bush instead of the people displaced by the war.
The Democrat told The Associated Press last week he was not inclined to accommodate any refugees because doing so would help bail out the president.
"I am sympathetic to the plight of the innocent Iraqi people who have fled that country," he said. "However, I would not want to ask Ohioans to accept a greater burden than they already have borne for the Bush administration's failed policies."
On Monday, he said he had been attempting to express his frustration with the Bush administration and the Iraq war, which he opposed when he was serving in the U.S. House.
"It's one of those incidents out of many (when) I've said something inartfully and conveyed something that I did not wish to convey," said Strickland, elected Nov. 7 and sworn in last month. "I guess it means that when you're a governor, people seem to be interested in what you say, which is fine, but I think everything has a context."
Strickland's initial comments were in reaction the administration plan to allow about 7,000 Iraqi refugees to settle in the United States over the next year. That number is a huge expansion at a time of mounting international pressure to help millions who have fled their homes in the nearly four-year-old war. The United States has allowed only 463 Iraq refugees into the country since the war began in 2003, even though some 3.8 million have been uprooted.
Strickland said he hopes to make his views clearer in the future

Yes Ted I said it, you got a phone call from the White House and all Has changed.... Chicken is what I said and chicken is what you are

Strickland wishes he could take back refugee remarks
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Mark Niquette
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
http://www.dispatch.com/news-story.php? ... A1-03.html

Gov. Ted Strickland says he has learned an early lesson in office the hard way: When the chief executive of a large state speaks, people listen.

Strickland, on the job for six weeks, is being slammed nationwide in newspaper editorials and Internet blogs for supposedly being heartless because of comments he made last week about Iraqi war refugees.

When asked whether he thinks any of the 7,000 Iraqi refugees that the Bush administration plans to allow into the United States this year should come to Ohio, Strickland, who opposed the war as a congressman, said no.

"I think Ohio and Ohioans have contributed a lot to Iraq in terms of blood, sweat and too many tears," Strickland told the Associated Press. "I am sympathetic to the plight of the innocent Iraqi people who have fled that country. However, I would not want to ask Ohioans to accept a greater burden than they already have borne for the Bush administration’s failed policies."

Those comments prompted several Ohio newspapers to criticize Strickland in editorials, and USA Today said yesterday in an opinion piece — complete with a grimfaced picture of the governor — that Strickland’s answer on Valentine’s Day was "as thoughtless as it was heartless."

One blogger even suggested that refugees get rooms in the governor’s Bexley residence.

Strickland said yesterday that although a governor doesn’t dictate where refugees locate, he was expressing his frustration about the Iraq war and would welcome Iraqi refugees if they came to Ohio.

And although he doesn’t think he’s heartless, he said he wishes he would have chosen his words more carefully.

"It was just a question that I got from a reporter and I expressed an opinion, and suddenly it has become a lot more than that," Strickland said. "It’s one of those incidents out of many (when) I’ve said something inartfully and conveyed something that I did not wish to convey.

"I guess it means that when you’re a governor, people seem to be interested in what you say, which is fine, but I think everything has a context."

Strickland said what he was trying to express was that the Bush administration created the refugee crisis by launching the war — and that allowing a relative handful of refugees to the United States is "a Band-Aid" and "not something that I think Ohio should have to deal with for the president."

"It is true that Ohio has paid a big burden," Strickland said. "I was expressing frustration about all this, but I don’t think I came across as a very nice person."

The White House press office would not comment on Strickland’s remarks yesterday, a federal holiday.

It’s the federal government and church or civic groups that usually determine where refugees locate, said Angela Plummer, director of Community Refugee and Immigration Services in Columbus.

States may be involved with public benefits and other services, but refugees typically are sponsored or settled in areas based on factors that don’t involve state governments, Plummer said.

For example, it is unlikely many Iraqi refugees would come to central Ohio because the region already is home to a large contingent of Somali refugees, she said.

Even so, Plummer and others who don’t support the war say Ohio should welcome the refugees because it is everyone’s responsibility to help Iraqis whose lives have been shattered.

"I would hope that Ohio would be leading the nation in regard to how this situation would be handled," said Adnan Mirza, executive director of the Ohio chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Strickland says he understands those sentiments and hopes to do a better job making his views clear.

"I have to live with myself and my efforts to communicate who I am and what I believe to people, and over time I hope to convince any doubters out there that I am not cruel and hard-hearted," he said.

mniquette@dispatch.com

From what I heard, Cleveland and some surrounding suburbs are getting full of muslims.

"It's one of those incidents out of many (when) I've said something inartfully and conveyed something that I did not wish to convey," said Strickland, elected Nov. 7 and sworn in last month.

That slurping sound is deafening!!!

Weak-kneed, lilly livered, snake in the grass!

the administration plan to allow about 7,000 Iraqi refugees to settle in the United States over the next year.

Hell, that equivalent number comes across our borders every day from Mexico! Was there a war in Mexico too? Just a war of the corrupt, I guess!

The only thing I can say is Thank God they are going there instead of coming to Oklahoma. I know sounds heartless don't it? Maybe they didn't want to go to the land of the red man!

Some people liked him because he said he was against selling the Ohio Turnpike to a foreign country before he was elected. (Then, of course, the workers would have immediately been replaced by people who would have worked for half the money.) Then, right after his election he said he might have to change his mind.

Now this...He just said a few days ago that Ohioans were having a tough enough time with so many of our manufacturing (and other) jobs being shipped to foreign countries and that was one reason he was against the Iraquis coming here. I guess we had a lot more jobs come into Ohio in the past three days, since it's apparently no longer a concern to the gov.

Originally Posted by ShockedinCalifornia

From what I heard, Cleveland and some surrounding suburbs are getting full of muslims.

I don't know how many have come into the area lately, but we've had Middle Easterners here in the Cleveland area for 20 years that I know of.