I meant to get to this a few days ago, but I know I'm a little late - sorry (have to relish the good news when we can...hat tip for the pic to bluegalfran at Crooks and Liars)...
...and this video should be completely unnecessary, but unfortunately it isn't (here - never occurred to me the toll that job has taken on him until I watched this clip)...
...and for the next installment of the countdown, it's time to journey to the primordial swamps of Florida, where misbegotten creatures emerge from the unholy ooze...
#9, Joe Pitts
#10, Jack Kingston
#11, Patrick McHenry
#12, Spencer Bachus
#13, Jim Gerlach
#14, Cliff Stearns
#15, Jean Schmidt
#16, Phil Gingrey
#17, David Schweikert
#18, Virginia Foxx
#19, Pete Sessions
#20, Charlie Dent
#21, Cathy McMorris Rodgers
#22, Chris Smith
#23, Todd Akin
#24, Buck McKeon
#25, Kristi Noem
#26, Hal Rogers
#27, Lou Barletta (Two bonus selections: Boren and Ross)
#28, Paul Broun
#29, Mary Bono Mack
#30, David Dreier
#31, Marsha Blackburn (including backgrounder)
…and that brings us to #8 on the list of U.S. House Repugs opposed to health care reform, and that would be Allen West of The Sunshine State.
Now before I say anything else, I should note that Alan Colmes, among others, has said something to the effect of “well, West has actually said that there are some parts of health care reform that he likes,” or whatever. If so, then please explain this.
(Also, I should probably say something about my thoroughly unscientific method of compiling this list as long as I’m thinking of it. There are people who you probably aren’t going to see on this list, though I can’t totally guarantee it, such as Peter King, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Dana Rohrabacher, and others. I definitely have disagreements with these individuals, but on the issue of health care reform, I’ve done a bit of research and haven’t found anything worth trying to nail them. Ros-Lehtinen and Rohrabacher are really bad on foreign policy as far as I’m concerned, but they’re actually a lot better on HCR than some of their same-party counterparts. And as awful as Peter King is on the “OMIGOD, SCARY MUSLIMS!!!” stuff, he actually said to Eric Cantor that we should, in essence, just move on after the recent Supreme Court ruling on the mandate, which I think showed some notable common sense...of course, that sleazy weasel Cantor – who definitely is coming later – has no intention of doing that.)
Now, back to West...
With the possible exception of Joe Walsh of Illinois, I don’t know anyone else remaining on the list who has said and done so many provocative – and just about always mind-numbingly stupid – things in less than two years in Congress (though it’s not as if we weren’t warned by folks such as Keith Olbermann, who we’ll hear from a little later). Race baiting, class baiting, questioning or trying to outright destroy the patriotism of those with whom he disagrees…none of that matters to West. I cannot recall a single episode where he has decided to refrain from demagoguery and adhere to the simplest possible standard of common decency (here, in response to a vote trying to hold President Obama to a timetable of troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, West said some of those in Congress advocating for troop withdrawal should “get shot at a few times”…and this came just a few months after the carnage in Tucson in January 2011).
Here, West said the Congressional Black Caucus was “racist” for supporting Attorney General Eric Holder in the wake of all of that “Operation Fast and Furious” business, in which Holder honestly tried to get to the bottom of that utter fiasco, with no help from House Oversight Committee Chair Darrell Issa (with “F&F” predated by the similar “gun-walking” idiocy of Operation Wide Receiver, though I don’t hear a word of complaint about Bushco AG Michael Mukasey). Also, West said that President Obama wants “you” (??) to be his “slave” here (nice – I’ll let you, dear reader, try and unpackage the crazy of that one). Oh, and among other things, West also said that drivers with Obama bumper stickers are “a threat to the gene pool” here (takes one to know one, I guess).
West also said here that student loans were “communist” here, and harking back to that once career-fatal but now laughable slander, he said here that there were “80 communists” in the House. He also said that early voting was an “unconstitutional entitlement” here (speaking of voting, he wanted to withhold foreign aid to Egypt to protest that's country's democratic election here). He added that Obama’s refusal to deport the children of “undocumented” workers who would have been covered under the DREAM Act, had it been passed, constitutes “voter fraud,” or something here (with West thinking they would be inclined to vote for Obama which, the last I checked, wasn’t a crime). And just to make sure that West is keeping his utter wingnuttery current, this tells us that he sent “chicken and biscuits” from Chick-Fil-A to a recent Congressional Black Caucus meeting and offended just about everybody.
As long as this post is, I should note that there’s a lot more that I could point out to show that West is an utterly craven life form that (you could argue) doesn’t deserve the company of respectable human beings, let alone a career in public life. Instead, I’ll just include this link and let you read the evidence for yourself (oh, and as noted here, count West as yet another elected official who has played the teabaggers for fools).
I wonder if he had that same insipid, half-smiling smirk on his face when he tortured his Iraqi prisoner in 2003, avoiding a court-martial even though he had to pay a $5,000 fine and accept non-combat duty (K.O. gets into that and other stuff shortly). Also, if you’ve had enough of West (haven’t you?), click here to support Florida’s Patrick Murphy, thus restoring a bit of sanity and plain decency to the House…
Update 8/26/12: Just a bit of projection here, you think?
Update 9/10/12: Point, meet counterpoint.
...and I have a feeling that this tune will be appropriate for a little while.
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