Joe Walsh, a Republican Congressman from Illinois, represents the current morass that the ‘family values party’ find themselves mired in, neck-deep. Walsh is a tough-talking nationalist who, although he’s never served a day in the military, had the nerve to criticize his opponent Tammy Duckworth for bringing up her military service in her campaign. It’s a subject that comes up often, as Duckworth lost both her legs in Iraq in 2004. He’s a law and order blowhard, and a fiscal hard-liner who once said of Obama and Washington:

“I won’t place one more dollar of debt upon the backs of my kids and grandkids unless we structurally reform the way this town spends money!”

Which is a very stirring thought. except at the moment he said those words he owed his ex-wife over $100,000 in child support. Just since his election, it’s been discovered that he was not living in he district he was representing, having had his home foreclosed on, lost his driver’s license for non-payment of insurance, and his ex-campaign manager was suing him, say it with me… for non-payment.

In short, Joe Walsh is a punk; an utter fraud whose every action gives lie to his stated position. A Republican who denigrates a battle-scarred veteran for the sake of political posturing. A fiscal conservative who is unwilling to honor any debts, even to his own family.

So it comes as no surprise that this unprincipled thug (who it repulses me to say, represents the town I grew up in) would stoop to racist rhetoric, in an effort to diminish the leader of the free world, President Barack Obama (Emphasis TPM):

“There’s something different on the ground, and I think it’s going to overtake us all again, think it’s going to overtake the political class. I think it’s going to respectfully pick this president up and pat him on the head and say, son, son, son, Mr. President, you were never ready to be president, now go home and work for somebody and find out how the real world works.”

Here’s the video:

Of course, Walsh cried foul, “every time anybody criticizes [Obama], the racist card is thrown out.” But that’s the standard defense for a tactic that’s being used all too often, from people like Walsh. It’s a sneering response to being called out on a derogatory comment, using barely concealed racist ‘code words.’ Are there more directly racist words that Walsh could have used? Absolutely, but like any schoolyard bully, he chose  language that left him something to hide behind when the bigger boys came out to play.

This is what you hear from a man who has no moral center, no guts, and certainly no answers to the trials America faces today. This is a man who won a congressional seat that makes up part of one county in Suburban Illinois, going hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to do so. What can this man bring to a fight against Barack Obama besides punches below the belt?

Nothing, nada, zip.

The only thing this Boss Hogg pretender has ever produced in the “real world” are checks no one can cash. And any real American who heard this man talk that way about the President of the United States, could have been forgiven for calling him out. There is no honor in this man, nor in anyone who would tolerate him

Republicans, we need to know, finally: Are you ready to offer any politician who can stand toe-to-toe with Barack Obama? Will you ever put your spines back in the empty skin of your patriotism? Or will you continue to send wave upon wave of surly, cynical would-be bullies, to pull down this president, and your country’s future with him?

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Written by: Don Hamel on August 9, 2012.
Last revised by: Matthew Desmond