Rep. Steve King has taken plenty of heat from both the left and the right over the past few days for his assertion that for every valedictorian DREAMer there are “another hundred” who “weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’ve been hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.”
Faced with criticism from House Speaker John Boehner and other fellow Republicans, King has refused to back down, saying “it’s not something that I’m making up,” and that his comments were “objective” and “might be the best informed in the entire U.S. Congress.” He wrapped up his case on the House floor yesterday, declaring that his critics would cause the downfall of the United States and of Western Civilization.
In an interview with Iowa talk radio host Simon Conway on Wednesday, King offered a similar tirade, accusing his critics of making “unrestrained, undisciplined, divisive remarks” and warning that if his opponents are allowed to have their way “this nation will eventually fail because we’ll completely lose our objectivity and we’ll be driven by our emotions instead of our reason.”
If we can’t discuss objective truth among people that are elected representatives in the United States Congress, if it has to turn personal, if they have to make these kind of remarks, these unrestrained, undisciplined, divisive remarks, at first I’d say, how could they have listened to the tape that you’ve run and come to such a conclusion? But second is, if there’s no objective discussion, if we can’t bring up the other side of the coin, then this nation will eventually fail because we’ll completely lose our objectivity and we’ll be driven by our emotions instead of our reason.