As King alienates his own party and defends his anti-immigration ‘cantaloupes’ comments on Fox News, John Boehner almost sounds reasonable.
Remember how?Rep.?Steve King (R-IA) made that?bizarre?remark about cantaloupes, which portrayed young, undocumented immigrants (DREAMers) as drug mules? In case you missed it, here it is again:
they [DREAMers] aren’t all valedictorians, they weren’t all brought in by their parents. For every one who’s a valedictorian, there’s another hundred out there who they weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’ve been hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.
Normal people?would pretend that interview with?Newsmax?never happened, but as we all know, King is definitely not normal. After all, during last week’s interview with Univision’s John Ramos, King refused to even apologize for?comparing immigrants to dogs last year. This week, King’s remarks got him skewered by the Colbert Report, the New Yorker, the Huffington Post, and just about everyone else on the Internet. Meanwhile, a group of DREAMers in graduation gowns delivered cantaloupes to King’s office, and the anti-immigrant congressman even got scolded by the leadership of his own party.
Is John Boehner The New Voice Of Reason?
Alexis Levinson from the Daily Caller reported that House Speaker John Boehner (R-OHcrap)??denounced King’s “cantaloupes” comments as ?hateful? and ?ignorant.? He continued:
I want to be clear, there is no place in this debate for hateful or ignorant comments from elected officials.
This?new policy sounds?awfully high-minded for the likes of Boehner … how “mighty white” of him. It’s also great news for Democrats, because it would?bar most of Boehner’s Republican colleagues in the House from ever speaking again. Boehner continued with some rather shocking statements:
Earlier this week, Rep. Steve King made comments that were, I think, deeply offensive and wrong. What he said does not reflect the values of the American people or the Republican Party. We all need to do our work in a constructive open and respectful way. As I’ve said many times, we can disagree without being disagreeable.
Good gracious, our once uncompromising “Bottleneck Boehner” practically sounds like President Barack Obama.
Even Fox News Has Turned Against Him …
Alas, King just can’t stop himself from doubling down on his totally offensive, racist ‘cantaloupes’ slurs. Igor Volsky from Think Progress reports that during?a Saturday interview on Fox News, King claimed that his fellow Republicans actually agree with his ‘cantaloupes’ comments … they just won’t admit it in public. When the Foxy Newsbot asked King why even other Republicans want nothing to do with him, King claimed that they’re still with him, they just won’t say so in public:
My colleagues are standing by me. They come up to me constantly and talk to me and say, you’re right, I know you’re right … They can do that privately … You know, they have a lot at stake here. There is a leverage within the House of Representatives and they all need to be concerned about their own leverage, so I’m not asking them to step forward, I wouldn’t ask them to step forward. I don’t want them to take repercussions.
Andrew Kaczynski from Buzzfeed also mentions that King talked about a conversation he had with a border patrol agent:
I got a call from them yesterday, and I said, ?Did I need to come back down and refresh myself?? They said, ?No, you’re spot on with what you’re saying but maybe you got the weight ten pounds up.?
Wow … so there was nothing wrong with King’s cantaloupes comment, except that drug mules?actually haul?65-pound bags of marijuana across the desert, not 75-pound bags. So perhaps their calves are only the size of grapefruits. Here’s the video, via BuzzFeed:
And yes, King’s claims of tacit support from his colleagues could very well be true. My Republican Grammie and Grampie never voiced their deeply racist thoughts in public either. Nonetheless, there’s something King REALLY doesn’t get. Even if all of his colleagues really are as racist as he is, there’s a REASON why they won’t cop to thinking most undocumented young folks are Mexican drug runners with over-developed calf muscles: Because they know it’s socially unacceptable — and flat out WRONG — to feel that way.
First photo screen captured from Fox News video, via BuzzFeed. Second image photo collaged by Elisabeth Parker with apologies to Warner Brothers, Speedy Gonzales, and Carmen Miranda.
Edited/Published by: SB
