In case you aren't glued to C-SPAN, debate started today on repealing the Affordable Care Act, or in GOPese "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law." Rep. Steve King, right on form, gave a preview for his talking points today in an interview with Human Events in which he fearlessly went where less crazy, and less incendiary, Republicans fear to go in the wake of the Arizona shootings. No civility for him.
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) continued his bluster against health care repeal in a recent interview with Human Events, saying that the entire package was driven by Democrats' "irrational Leftist lust for socialized medicine."
According to King, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed last March was simply a product of a genetic predisposition toward dependency and against American greatness.
"They can't help themselves; it's in their DNA. These people are Leftists," King said of Democrats. "They don't see this country the way that we do. Their idea of American Exceptionalism is yet to come."
Called on it in an interview on ABC News's Top Line, King backtracked, sort of, but didn't lessen crazy one iota.
"Well, I'd say first that the word 'lust' is more associated with love than it is with violence," King responded. "I didn't think it's an irrational comment at all -- I just see it as the situation we're in. I have an irrational lust to love the Constitution and fiscal responsibility and individualism."
What the hell, it gets him on TV on a regular basis. Like on Fox News, where he argued that there's no problem in 12 million people "slipping through the cracks" should health reform be repealed (although the actual figure is more like 36 million). As for the "leftist lust for socialized medicine," it wasn't all that long ago that even Republicans were arguing for universal health coverage. Chuck Grassley, on the mandate:
"There isn't anything wrong with it, except some people look at it as an infringement upon individual freedom. But when it comes to states requiring it for automobile insurance, the principle then ought to lie the same way for health insurance, because everybody has some health insurance costs, and if you aren't insured, there's no free lunch. Somebody else is paying for it....
"I believe that there is a bipartisan consensus to have individual mandates." -- June 14, 2009
Apprently the June, 2009 version of Chuck Grassley shared a the Democrats' lust for socialized medicine more than King's lust for the Constitution. But he got over it.