SALON

Anthony York

Monday, Apr 30, 2001 5:29 PM UTC

Torricelli to senator: “I’m going to cut your balls off!”

Plus: Former LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman says he will take his own look into the death of a former Clinton friend.

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Anger management

A piece in The New Republic by Jason Zengerle underscores the problems embattled New Jersey Senator Robert Torricelli is having — from members of his own party.

“For many Democratic senators, the defining Torricelli moment came at a closed-door caucus meeting in 1999, when a longsimmering feud between him and New Jersey’s then-senior Senator Frank Lautenberg boiled to the surface,” Zengerle writes. “After Lautenberg chided Torricelli for telling a reporter he felt closer to New Jersey’s Republican Governor Christie Todd Whitman than he did to Lautenberg, Torricelli erupted. ‘You’re a fucking piece of shit,’ he yelled, ‘and I’m going to cut your balls off!’ It wasn’t the sort of performance that goes over well in the decorous halls of the Senate.”

On Plastic.com, the thread devoted to the article is titled, “New Jersey Senator Bob Toricelli has abandonment issues.”

Even in Table Talk, liberal posters were calling Torricelli a “turncoat.”

“I think a republican posing as a Democrat.” writes one poster. “Democrats are killing each other in the broad daylight,” laughs another.

But using the old “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” line of logic, the folks at the Free Republic were looking out for The Torch.

“Tori had better wake up. The Dems are fixin’ to dump him in an effort to appear ‘ethical,’” warns one poster. “Watch the Sunday Shows when it happens, Lieberman will be the ‘conscience of the Senate’ (barf) once again.”

Weblines

Bush Watch: “Reclusive Bush is an Angry Bully in Private”
Drudge Report: “Mag: Kerrey Considers Surrendering Bronze Star ”
The Spleen.com: “Amadou Diallo and the War on Innocent Civilians”
Michael Kinsley: “There’s More Than One Way to Peel a Shrimp”
Andrew Sullivan: “Catholics and Death”

Big buzz

From our “With Friends Like These …” Department, an upcoming issue of Details magazine reports that O.J. Simpson trial witness Mark Fuhrman will begin his own investigation into the death of former Clinton aide Vince Foster.

“Someone tried to stage a crime scene that is not believable in the least, and to make it work they gave it to an investigative body like the Park Police who can be ordered around and bullied,” Fuhrman tells Details.

That paved the way for some good, ol’-fashioned Clinton bashing at the Free Republic, where they are still pining for a new mortal enemy.

“We all know that the death of Vince Foster was not a suicide,” writes one poster. “I had not been paying a lot of attention to the Foster case, since I had come to the conclusion that the Clinton Justice Department was doing everything it could to sweep it under the rug, or outright changing of evidence. ”

“When Furhman makes headway, watch the powers to be try to destroy his reputation by digging up every ‘racist’ and ‘politically incorrect’ thing he did in his life,” warns another. “They will try to use the logic “so what he got the evidence to prove foul play, he is a racist, sexist, anti-Semite, homophobe and God forbid a born again Christian who lives in one of those militia prone Western states where all bigots reside. If one is progressive, one will not never allow such an individual to succeed and gain national status!!”

For more Red vs. Blue, click here.

Submit your own rant or direct us to a good political online discussion by e-mailing us at redvsblue@salon.com, or jump right into a Table Talk discussionabout Red vs. Blue.

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