The blow-up between south Florida Reps. Allen West (R) and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D) isn’t particularly interesting. Wasserman-Schultz, who also serves as head of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), expressed surprise and amazement on the House floor that West would support handing Medicare recipients a bill for $6,000 when he serves a district so rich in Medicare recipients. When West found out that he’d been criticized on the House Floor (not by name, mind you), he lost his temper and sent a letter to Wasserman-Schultz (and copied to Pelosi and Cantor) in which he called her a bunch of nasty names.
Anyone who has paid any attention to Rep. Allen West knows that his political support arises almost solely from an incident in Iraq where he fired a gun near the head of a detainee resulting in the loss of his command, a reprimand, and a fine. He’s popular because he treated an Arab roughly and paid a price for it. His rhetoric is consistently ridiculous, and it’s not at all clear that he has a firm hold on reality. It’s no surprise that he lost his marbles after some rather mild criticism from a fellow lawmaker.
What’s lost in all this focus on West’s behavior is that Wasserman-Shultz had a good point. It used to be that you could count on a south Florida politician to do two things: protect entitlements and support the embargo of Cuba. Now we have a Tea Party Republican who doesn’t have the slightest sense of self-preservation. This is one more example of the larger problem with the Tea Party’s influence in Washington. If they don’t care about themselves, how can we expect them to care about the economy or our interest rates or the pain they’ll be causing to others?
As usual, the rethgs can dish it out but they sure can’t take it when someone gets back in their face with, you know, the truth.
Love it. Good for Debbie.
DWS was just being DWS. she wasn’t even being STRONG DWS.
she told the simple truth.
West is a slave catching assclown who should be in Leavenworth.
In the interest of full disclosure, I will declare at the outset that I am an African American, but I am not a resident of Florida, nor do I reside in Allen West’s district. However, I will offer this opinion concerning Allen West’s constituents. Most likely many of the voters in West’s district are black and during the 2010 elections left their “due diligence” at the polling station door and voted for Allen West simply because he looked like a “responsible brother”.
Yes indeed, what I am saying is in all likelihood those African American voters in West’s district who voted for Allen West did it simply on race alone, and these voters had no knowledge whatsoever of the Tea Party and West’s connection to it as a Tea Party candidate.
Even the most ignorant person will not spite himself after once being properly enlightened.
This is the reason why West was so incensed with Wasserman-Shultz’s effort to shine a little light on quirky Allen so that the black folks in his district could get a real look at the person that they help elect as their Representative in Congress. West is correct in thinking that if he keeps himself sufficiently obscured in his district that the same poor black folks who voted for him in 2010 will go out and re-elect him again regardless of what he does in Washington for them or to them.
You see what “Mr. Tea Party West” is playing out in his district in Florida is known as good old fashioned “Client – Patron” politics. In this particular case Allen West as a Congressman is the Client and Freedom Works as the funding source is the Patron. West as a Congressional vote in the House of Representatives delivers his vote exactly as Freedom Works tells him how to vote, regardless of how that vote may impact his constituents. In this sense he is no longer representing his district, but is effectively the representative of Freedom Works and the Koch Brothers in Congress. The black folks in West’s district need to know this and I applaud Wasserman-Shultz for taking care of business. Right on Debbie, and keep on keeping on!!
West’s district is 3% Black.
Well, it looks like Obama’s “embrace” of the gang of 6 plan is already having desired effect – fracturing the GOP (the “Get Obama Party”) http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/07/it-begins-top-republcians-push-away-from-gang-of-six-plan
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That corner for Republicans just keeps getting smaller and smaller. And it seems that the GOP has an endless supply of brushes and paint for their caucus to continue to shrink their little corner of the room.
Well, DUH. You can’t expect them to care because they DON’T care: as I have said repeatedly, the elected republican tea partiers -representatives, senators, governors, judges- care about re-election about as much as Mohammed Atta cared about landing planes (a much more recent analogy than the Japanese in WW2).
They are there for one reason, and one reason only: to destroy. That’s why there was so much effort to make sure they won in places like Pennsylvania, Florida, NJ, and other swing states: so they could destroy the economies there, with the goal of destroying the democratic president’s administration. That’s the sole reason they ran. That’s why they don’t care about the long term, the rules of the game, or anything.
there is only one way to deal with them, and DSW made a stab in that direction: they need to be destroyed in any way possible.
So why is that sell-out Sweeney(and the other dipshit) playing ball with The Fat Man in Jersey? Has anyone heard if Sweeney is a dead man walking yet(electorally)? Why is it that a lot of state Democratic Parties aren’t taking the lessons of Wisconsin to heart?
read this, it answers all.