John Boehner thinks Steve King is crazy

By Michael J.W. Stickings

You'll recall that Iowa Republican Steve King made some remarkably bigoted comments about the children of undocumented immigrants the other day -- essentially that most of them are drug mules.

There's no doubt that many Republicans find this sort of thing offensive and are embarrassed by it, but rarely do they actually call out their own.

But House Speaker John Boehner, to his credit, has apparently had enough of this wacko, and he's basically telling him to shut the fuck up:

Boehner on Thursday called his comments about illegal immigrants "deeply offensive and wrong."

"What he said does not reflect the values of the American people or the Republican Party," the speaker said.

I would agree with the first part, but the second part is open to question. Certainly most Americans do not share such bigotry, but who is more in tune with the values of the Republican Party, Boehner or King?

Iowa Republican Steve King ramps up the anti-immigrant bigotry

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Yes, some of the less extreme Republicans understand that their party has to make a concerted effort to reach out to Hispanics in order to remain electorally viable, and some of the less bigoted ones also realize that their party needs to be sincere in rebranding itself as more inclusive, even that it's good in and of itself to embrace basic decency and respect for others...

But then there are the likes of Rep. Steve King of Iowa, who obviously speak for many more in the Republican Party when they ramp up the ideological extremism and blend it with unabashed bigotry, including contributing to an immigration debate that is already making Republicans look like a bunch of retrograde fools by targeting the children of undocumented immigrants:

Iowa conservative Republican Congressman Steve King said in an interview with Newsmax that for every valedictorian DREAMer who has been brought to this country by his or her family, "...there's another 100 out there who, they weigh 130 pounds and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert. Those people would be legalized with the same act."

Seriously -- you can watch the clip below. This guy -- a prominent Republican congressman with solid standing in the party -- says that for every one success story there are a hundred drug runners. I can't speak for Hispanics, but this doesn't appear to be a compelling appeal for their support, and one could hardly fault them for thinking that the Republican Party doesn't much care for them, you know, what with the way it vilifies them and all.