Craziest Republican of the Day: Steve King

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Yes, Steve King. Again. I think this is his eleventh appearance as CRD. The last one was... wait... a whole year ago? Huh.

But it's not like he hasn't been crazy in 2013. One just tires of his craziness. I mean, he could be our CRD every day of every week of every month of every year. Alongside, you know, Louie Gohmert, Michele Bachmann, etc., etc. Republicans are nothing if not generous with the material they provide us.

In any event, we did write about King in 2013, but the focus wasn't so much on "craziness" as on... anti-immigrant bigotry, with which the Iowa congressman is brimming. And, yes, he was at it again yesterday:

Rep. Steve King said Tuesday that granting amnesty to immigrants in this country illegally is more than the equivalent of giving a pass to a bank robber, it's like letting them keep the money, too.

"To grant amnesty is to pardon immigration lawbreakers and reward them with the objective of their crime," King said at a Washington panel on amnesty hosted by the conservative group Judicial Watch on Tuesday. "Whatever their objective is, the advocates of amnesty are seeking to grant them their objective."

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"And it isn't just as if amnesty for someone whom, say, might go in and rob a bank, because granting them amnesty would be when they get out on the street with the loot, you would say to them, 'I'm going to give you amnesty, now you're not going to be able to rob the bank anymore,'" King said. "But this is giving them the loot, too. You get to rob the bank and keep the money. That's what amnesty really is, it's pardon them for the crime and reward them with the objective of it. And it breaks down our culture and our civilization."

Well, no, it's this sort of bigotry that's breaking down "our culture and our civilization," though of course what he means by our culture and our civilization is, well, disturbing. What does it mean? Well, what? No dark-skinned people? No Spanish-speaking people? Is White Iowa his utopia?

Regardless, it's deeply offensive to compare undocumented immigrants to bank robbers, just as it was, back in July, to suggest that the children of undocumented immigrants are drug mules.

What a charming guy. He seriously doesn't get it. He's just too bigoted, and too stupid to see that undocumented immigrants are in America not as criminals but in most cases as good and decent people just trying to find a better life for themselves and their families, as people who believe in America and its ideals, its hopes and possibilities, far more genuinely than do "patriots" like King.

And you think, with views like these, Republicans can really win the Latino vote? Ha. Now that's crazy.