Yes, you did say it, Congressman

Like everyone else, congressmen often say what they really mean -- and then deny they meant it when called to task for the insult.

An example from 1995 still rankles:    House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) referred to openly gay Rep. Barney Frank as "Barney Fag."    Then tried to dismiss it as merely a mispronunciation and blamed the media for reporting it.    Yeah, right.

Well, now we have a similar situation with racial overtones -- or, rather, with blazing colors.   As ShrinkRap readers well know, I consider Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) one of the most despicable members of the Republican House -- and that has to be pretty far down the despicable scale.   As chair of the House Committee on Government Oversight, he is in a position to make life miserable for the White House by his incessant hearings on supposed wrong-doing.    The most notoriously wrong one recently being the IRS non-scandal.

The feud between Issa and the ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) is mostly about politcal and policy differences;  but today racism came front and center.    Cummings is African-American.

The contention was (still !!) about the IRS non-scandal, which Issa keeps trying to breathe life into.   Cummings challenged Issa's past assertions that the White House was behind the IRS targeting of Tea Party Groups.    Issa interrupted him to deny that he had ever blamed the White House, claiming he had only said "Washington."   Here's the shocking comment:

"I'm always shocked when the ranking member seems to want to say, like a little boy whose hand has been caught in a cookie jar, 'What hand? What cookie?' I've never said it leads to the White House."

First, Issa is on record as having called the President's Press Secretary "a paid liar" for denying any White House involvement.   So Issa himself is lying here.

But that pales in comparison to calling the 62 year old, African-American congressman a "boy."   Nobody with any sensitivity or understanding in today's world could fail to know that this is inflammatory and will rightfully be felt as a racist put-down.

Of course, Issa did try to weasle out, saying it was just a saying from his own boyhood, and he meant nothing by it.   I've heard it all my life too -- but only the part about "getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar."   I've never heard it as "a little boy whose hand has been caught in a cookie jar."

Actually, it's Issa who was caught with his hand in the cookie jar -- trying to make a case against Obama that simply doesn't exist.  He was caught in his lie, and resorted to a metaphor which fits him exactly, not his more honorable Democratic colleague.

Cummings, acting the gentleman of traditional Senate decorum, accepted Issa's explanation.    That's real class;  and it fools no one.   Issa was the loser in this exchange.

Ralph