American Politics Journal -- GOP Functionaries Attended 1996 Buddhist Temple Event, Too!



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Gore Transcript States GOP Functionaries Attended 1996 Buddhist Temple Event, Too!
by Tamara Baker

Monday, June 26, 2000 -- SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA -- Here's a little tidbit from the Washington Post's version of the transcripts of Al Gore's interviews with DOJ official (and Jesse Helms acolyte) Robert Conrad, one that has probably escaped your notice.

(It did mine, at first.)

Q: [showing Gore a picture taken at the Hsi Lai community outreach event] The person to the right of Maria Hsia?
A: Right. I don't recognize the other two. Don Knabe, another Los Angeles County Commissioner was also there. He's a Republican member of the Commission. Odd that he would attend a DNC event and certainly unthinkable in my mind that he would attend a DNC fund-raising event. Would you think he would pay the DNC ---
MR. NEAL: Mr. Vice President?
THE WITNESS: Okay, sorry.

Did you catch that?

Now why, as Vice President Gore tried to ask Helms acolyte Conrad, would a GOP official like Don Knabe be at an event alleged to be a DEMOCRATIC fundraiser?

Gore maintained all along that he had never been told, and had never assumed, that the Hsi Lai Temple event was a Democratic fundraiser.

Apparently, neither was Don Knabe, or else he wouldn't have been there!

I wonder if Sen. Arlen Spector (R-Not too swift) must secretly be hoping that Janet Reno doesn't fall for his attempts to brow-beat her into going after Gore.

If she does, all Gore need do to clear himself of the accusations would be to ensure Don Knabe was subpoenaed to testify concerning his own presence at the Hsi Lai event.

Subpoenaing Knabe would work against the Republicans in two ways: in addition to clearing Gore, it also would neutralize the underlying racist subtext inherent in the charges leveled against Gore in the first place.

It's pretty obvious that had Gore visited a Baptist church fundraiser populated by white people, constructing a brouhaha to use against the Vice President would not have been so tempting for the RNC's Jim Nicholson.

But if the GOP's core racist religious right constituency sees that a (horrors!!) California Republican functionary attended that pagan, heathen, "sneaky Chinese temple thang," then suddenly the Party of Nixon is deprived of a useful tool to motivate the bigots into pulling the elephant lever this November.