A ‘DEBATE’ STEVE KING IS LIKELY TO LOSE…. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) argued on a right-wing radio show this week that President Obama has a “default mechanism” that causes him to “favor the black person” in every dispute. While King makes offensive remarks like these with some regularity, this incident caused a bit of a stir and was picked up by some major media outlets.
It helped that some of King’s own allies distanced themselves from him after the comments, and the far-right Iowan was disinvited from two upcoming events in Colorado.
King is not, however, embarrassed. On the contrary, he’s doubling down, arguing on the House floor last night that the Obama administration “defaults in favor of whichever minority they think will be the one that will most likely support their party and their agenda.”
He also told an Iowa radio show yesterday that his accusations of racism were “accurate” and “objective.” King added that he hopes to spark a larger national discussion.
“I told my people here that handle my media: ‘Let’s let this cook for a couple of days and see if this pot will come to a boil,’” King said. “I don’t want to put it away in the first day because I think the American people need to have this debate about what appears to me to be an inclination on the part of the White House and the Justice Department and perhaps others within the administration to break on the side of favoritism with regard to race.”
First, if King wants to start a public dialog, he’s going to have to offer some kind of proof to bolster his ridiculous accusations. Simply asserting that the president is a racist is more likely to spark a discussion about King’s madness than Obama’s biases.
Second, if we do have this “debate,” the only politician whose racism will be obvious will be King’s. As Adam Serwer explained yesterday, “This is, of course, the same Steve King who has defended the Confederate flag, advocated for racial profiling, referred to the Congressional Black and Hispanic Caucuses as ‘separatist groups,’ and said that people in the Middle East would be ‘dancing in the streets’ if Obama was elected because of his middle name. He was also the only — repeat — only congressman to vote against recognizing the contributions of slaves in building the U.S. Capitol, where King now spends his time spewing this kind of nonsense.”
“The American people need to have this debate”? Sounds good to me.
