According to Springfield, Missouri's NBC affiliate, Roy Blunt is starting to take some heat for his parable comparing the President Obama and Democrats in Washington, DC to a band of jungle monkeys terrorizing British imperialists trying to play a simple game of golf.
In Blunt's parable, the monkeys keep on storming out of the jungle and throwing golf balls around the course. As a result, he says, "you have to play the ball where the monkey throws it," because there's no way to eliminate the monkey problem.
If you haven't seen it yet, it's worth watching:
(Transcript below the fold.)
As Rachel Maddow says, it is extraordinary that a senior member of Congress -- who just happens to be the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Missouri -- thinks it's totally appropriate to cast his political opponents as jungle monkeys.
He deserves every bit of heat he gets.
Transcript:
MADDOW: Behold, a Missouri congressman, candidate for U.S. Senate, until recently, the number three Republican in the House, telling what seems to be a really long, meandering, gut-churning racist joke.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ROY BLUNT (R), MISSOURI: Supposedly it’s the turn of the 19th century, the end of the 19th century, beginning of the 20th century, there was a group of British occupiers in a very lush, very quiet, very peaceful, very uneventful part of India. And this group of British soldiers who were occupying that part of India decided they’d carve a golf course out of the jungle of India. And there was really not much else to do. So, for over a year, this was the biggest event going on getting this golf course created.
And they got the golf course done and almost from the day the first ball was hit on this golf course, something happened they didn’t anticipate. Monkeys would come running out of the jungle and they would grab the golf balls. And if it was in the fairway, they might throw it in the rough. If it was in the rough, they might throw — they might throw it back at you.
And I can go into great and long detail about how many things they did to try to eliminate the monkey problem, but they never got it done. So finally, for this golf course and this golf course only, they passed a rule, and the rule was you have to play the ball where the monkey throws it. And that is the rule in Washington all the time.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Well, who does what? So, who’s the — who’s the monkey in Washington in this story? It’s Republican Congressman Roy Blunt who wants to be the next Republican senator from the great state of Missouri. Mr. Blunt performed his lamentation of Washington monkey at this weekend’s Values Voter Summit in Washington.
