Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R., Texas) spoke with National Review Online on Friday at FreedomWork’s “Take Back America” conference in Washington. The evening rally, which was attended by thousands of conservative activists, was a precursor of sorts to Saturday’s “Restoring Honor” event at the Lincoln Memorial. Armey calls “Restoring Honor,” which will be hosted by Glenn Beck of Fox News, an “important moment for America.”
Armey, who holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Oklahoma, has high praise for Beck’s ability to provide viewers with a “more true and accurate history of the United States.”
“We see it documented at levels of rigor that, in fact, one would expect out of Ph.D. dissertations — [it is] serious, scholarly work,” Armey says. “[Liberal critics] don’t have to argue with Glenn Beck. They have to argue with his documentation and they can’t match that level of rigor.”
As he looks towards November, Armey says that he is “very disappointed” with GOP leaders for not embracing Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget plan. “The decision to not sponsor Ryan’s ‘road map’ is a political decision,” he says. Many conservatives, he believes, “find it intolerable” that only 13 Republicans have cosponsored the proposal.
One of the stars of the FreedomWorks rally was Mike Lee, the Republican U.S. Senate nominee in Utah who helped to oust GOP Sen. Bob Bennett, an 18-year veteran, in May.
After Armey praised Lee, NRO asked whether Republicans like Bennett still have a place in the GOP. “We are not interested in a Republican majority in Congress — we’re interested in a conservative majority in Congress,” Armey says. “It is the ideas that are greater than the man or the political party. Senator Bennett has had his time. He had a chance, for example, to stand up for the Constitution that he swore allegiance to [by voting against the Troubled Asset Relief Program]. His failure to do that upset the voters of his state.”