The Left Coast of Iowa

From Democratic candidate Joyce Schulte:

Congressman Steve King continues his vituperative and uncivil behavior during his speech at the Iowa Republican State Convention.

Commenting on the recent death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a most reprehensible person at best, King opined that al-Zarqawi has probably learned that 72 virgins did not await him in the hell he is in. King went on to state "And if there are, they probably all look like Helen Thomas." There was extended laughter by King and his audience.

While we should not be surprised by any of King's remarks at this point in his career, his desultory comments about the appearance of a respected member of the journalistic community is so low as to evoke a response from me.

Mean-spirited remarks are beneath the dignity of any self respecting Congressperson, and remarks about another person's appearance are even lower.

I am not an apologist for al-Zarqawi, and the hell he put many people through; Muslim, Christian and unknown others. I am certain that he is getting his justice and that there is no excuse for the kind of terror he practiced. I let God be God.

I hesitate to even use Helen Thomas' name in the same document with so vile a wretch as al-Zarqawi. But I want her and the world to know that Iowans are not insensitive buffoons who make fun at someone else's expense.

My mother (and I'll bet yours, too) used to say to me: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

Yet it still ... and I repeat STILL ... took me until 2004 to finally accept the fact that there's a vast amount of voters out there who not only can be fooled once, but twice and three and four times and even throughout their entire lives. (You know, "Who you gonna believe? Me, or your own eyes?")

Guess my mother never really taught me how to *quit* giving people the benefit of the doubt. Now, though, all I can do is watch them line up and actually fight for a place in that line to get their Dixie Cup of Kool-aid. Sort of like cattle led to slaughter (who understand as much as Rev. Jim Jones's followers did), as they ignore ALL the warning signs -- over and Over and OVER again.

It's the Steve King worship thing. AKA -- "Where's my Kool-aid?"

Let's just encapsulate two things from the past week.

#1: Washington vs. Baghdad: Iowa lawmaker gets a reality check

This (June 14, '06) article by Scripps Howard News Service's Dale McFeatters will do a whole lot more than ruffle feathers. We're talking BOLD-FACED LIES here. Okay, so even if King is an uneducated college dropout, this is NO EXCUSE for a U.S. Representative who should (at the VERY LEAST) have learned how to do his homework. In a nutshell?

King says the violent death rate in Washington (D.C.) is far more dangerous than in Iraq.
His "fuzzy math":
Violent Death Rate in Iraq is 27.51 per 100,000 people.
Violent Death Rate in Washington is 45 per 100,000 people.

The Truth?
The murder rate in Washington is 35.8 per 100,000.
The murder rate for Baghdad is 95 per 100,000.

And that's not all. McFeatters quotes the Brookings Institution as saying that even THAT Baghdad number is "too low since many murder victims are never taken to the morgue, but buried quickly and privately and therefore never recorded in official tallies."

Okay. So (even now) I *tried* to give King the benefit of the doubt, thinking since he's not good with numbers, perhaps he just transposed a couple here and there. But, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get 27.51 to transpose into 95, nor could I get 45 to transpose to 35.8.

Come on, folks. We're dealing with a congressman here who DEALS IN NUMBERS on OUR behalf. What other numbers and figures has he fudged and faked as he's bluffed his way through congress picking straw from his teeth?

Which brings me to #2 for the week: And another number. A real one. As in 72 VIRGINS (King's words, not mine -- my mama raised me to be a Christian and never make fun of how ANYONE looks). But hey, it certainly got King a lot of laughs at the GOP State Convention -- regardless of the way his tacky trailer-park speech unfolded. And just because my mama raised me as a Christian, I won't focus on Mister King's lack of grammar skills and his hanging prepositions (guess Math wasn't the only reason he dropped out). Too bad no one told him about those remedial classes, but that's for another day...

The truth is, it isn't his lack of grammar skills or ability to do simple math that has me fuming over this Kool-aid King. It's the inexcusable, ill-bred and poor white trash persona he so deftly portrayed as OUR congressman when comparing 72 virgins in hell to all looking like Helen Thomas.

Shame, shame, shame on you, Mr. King. And shame on the voters too lazy to read or take the time to educate themselves who so eagerly grab that Kool-aid from your pulpit and gulp it down out of fear and ignorance and love of a party they can't begin to understand is poisoning them as they choke on their gratitude for not having to think.