An interesting guessing game has broken out about the possible identity of a Republican congressperson who made a profanity-laden scathing attack on Donald Trump to Erick Erickson, a right-wing polemicist. The congressperson had clearly wanted his views to be made known while demanding that his identity be kept secret, hardly a profile in courage, but the norm in our political world.
“If we’re going to lose because of him, we might as well impeach the motherf**ker,” said the congressman as we roamed the aisles of a Safeway grocery store together.
…“It’s like Forrest Gump won the presidency, but an evil, really f*cking stupid Forrest Gump. He can’t help himself. He’s just a f**king idiot who thinks he’s winning when people are b*tching about him. He really does see the world as ratings and attention.
…“I say a lot of shit on TV defending him, even over this. But honestly, I wish the motherf*cker would just go away. We’re going to lose the House, lose the Senate, and lose a bunch of states because of him. All his supporters will blame us for what we have or have not done, but he hasn’t led. He wakes up in the morning, sh*ts all over Twitter, sh*ts all over us, sh*ts all over his staff, then hits golf balls. F*ck him. Of course, I can’t say that in public or I’d get run out of town.”
This was even before Paul Ryan had announced his retirement, setting in motion a considerable degree of panic that the Republican party is in deep trouble going into the elections in November. It should be noted that Ryan is someone who saw Social Security and Medicaid and Medicare payments as rewarding moochers and parasites to live off taxpayers but he himself will get a handsome pension from taxpayers for the rest of his life, making him the real moocher and parasite.
The people at Medium put on their forensic hats to try and piece together the clues in the story to figure out who the venting congressperson might be and according to them the prime suspect is: Peter King, congressman from New Jersey York state.
The really interesting question is why King (or whoever it is) was so eager to get these comments out into the public and why Erickson helped him do it. They had to know that the identity would leak out at some point. King might think that New Jersey Republican voters might prefer someone who distances himself from Trump but does not want to openly attack the leader of his own party.
Interesting. I just brought this up yesterday on my blog, after I was alerted to the story by Wonkette.
Wonkette’s strong guess is also Peter King. I don’t follow congressional personalities even when I do follow overall political trends. I’m most likely to notice an individual who is in a small group whose votes might control the fate of a motion or bill about which I care a bunch. King is too consistently conservative to be in that might-or-might-not category on any issues of importance to me, so I don’t really know anything about him and have to trust the professional Congress-watchers. But the fact that Wonkette and Medium were both willing to bet on King certainly says something.
…oh, and by-the-by, King is from New York, not New Jersey. He holds the NY-2nd.
Not that being from NY really changes anything important about the story of course. Just thought I’d throw that out there.
“the Republican party is in deep trouble going into the elections in November.”
Good. They SHOULD be afraid. I’m going to do my part to stomp them into greasy pink paste.
“Evil Forrest Gump” is a pretty good line, but that’s the only credit this coward gets.
… he himself will get a handsome pension from taxpayers for the rest of his life…
Lots of people complain about Congressional pensions, but I disagree: in general, they make sense.
First of all, a lot of untrue emails have convinced many of us that they’re obscenely generous, when in fact they correspond to midlevel corporate plans and vary directly with length of time in office (a short stint in the House will not leave you set for life).
But mostly, they offer a degree of protection against corruption: having a degree of personal security means that elected officials can, at least in theory, do their jobs without a personal incentive to cozy up to the corporate moneybags, and even vote against the fat cats without fear of individual poverty. Of course, at present our system demands each such official has to bend before the Big Boys for campaign contributions to have any chance for re-election, but we’d be better off with a public “giveaway” of campaign funding in that case as well.
Do we really want only the independently wealthy in Congress?
Pierce,
Your argument applies to anyone, not to just congresspeople. People should be paid enough that they cannot be tempted by poverty to become corrupt, either while working or after they retire. What is obscene is that Ryan sought to end the financial security of the less fortunate while enjoying it himself. Of course, you can be sure that what he earns as a lobbyist will dwarf what he gets as a pension. That is the real ‘retirement benefit’ that members of congress get.
I worked for 10 years with the most ruthless politicians in the USA, in Louisiana, the Capitol, as just the ghost writer for their laws and mistakes, et al. I even had to tolerate the NAZI David Duke. Donald Trump is an asshole. Ruthless also. And money hungry. As usual. He knows nothing about NOTHING of Democracy and the history of this country. He is beginning to make Richard Nixon and I never thought I would say this, but due to my experience, TRUMP makes Nixon look not half bad and I wish for the days of George W. Bush, and I am a liberal, big time! And will stay that way! FUCK DONALD TRUMP! FUCK HIM! HE is the ANTI-CHRIST! As predicted.
AMB