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J.C. Watts calls for civility among Republicans

by: RANDY KREHBIEL World Staff Writer
Thursday, October 15, 2009

Former Congressman J.C. Watts appealed for civility and unity among Republicans while speaking Thursday night at a GOP fundraiser at the Southern Hills Hilton.

“Put me in … jail if I don’t slam Barack Obama,” Watts said. “Put me in … jail if I don’t slam people who disagree with me. A radio station in Oklahoma City said J.C. Watts must be a closet Obama supporter because he never slams him. I never slammed Bill Clinton — but I voted to impeach him.”

Watts said some Republicans are so concerned with ideological purity that they are costing the party elections. He compared them to Christian denominations that refuse to recognize each other because of minor theological differences.

“Republicans can be much like Christians. They can eat their own,” he said.

Watts said Republicans who refused to vote for John McCain because they disagreed with him on one or two issues helped elect a president even further outside their views.

“They say they feel like they’re voting for the lesser of two evils. … They say they don’t believe in voting for the lesser of two evils. I tell them that until we get Jesus Christ on the ballot we’ll always be voting for the lesser of two evils.

Everybody who ever voted for me voted for the lesser of two evils.”

He said Obama’s election has caused political turmoil because of the issues the new administration has brought to the forefront.

“If John McCain had been elected, most of the things we are in battles over today we wouldn’t be talking about.”

Watts praised U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn as “a threat to the system” and said that “God is going to have a special place in heaven for Tom Coburn.” He compared the senator to Martin Luther King Jr., saying that, like King, Coburn could not be threatened or bought off.

Watts predicted that Coburn would emerge unscathed from the controversy surrounding his actions involving an alleged financial settlement between U.S. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., and the family of Ensign’s married mistress.

“I would mortgage one of my grandkids that Tom Coburn was sharing the Gospel in that situation. To make that look sinister is just — it’s what politics has become.”

Associate Images:

Former U.S. Rep. J.C. Watts, seen here delivering a speech in 2002, spoke Thursday at a Republican fundraiser in Tulsa. Mike Shepherd/Associated Press

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