Tea Party hero Steve King challenges Sen. Chuck Schumer to a “duel”

[DonViejo]

The Iowa congressman doesn't seem to fully understand what that word means, however

ELIAS ISQUITH

Pushing back against charges that his brand of xenophobia is keeping the GOP from bringing immigration reform to the House floor, GOP Rep. Steve King attempted to prove he wasn’t a reactionary loon by challenging Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer — a vocal proponent of immigration reform — to a “duel.”

“If we’re going to have some kind of a challenge of rhetoric bouncing back between the House and Senate, let’s do it face to face,” King said Thursday while on the House floor. “Let’s do it eye-to-eye. Let’s have that duel — not like Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton — but …. like real men do it today. Not dueling pistols at 50 paces; let’s do this with microphones within arm’s reach.”

Seemingly believing xenophobia to be a kind of disease, King added that his idea for a “duel” (which the rest of us might call a “debate”) would help lawmakers “get to the bottom of this and … determine who actually had the xenophobia.”

Schumer, along with other Democrats, had previously taken a rhetorical tact intended to portray Steve King as the face of GOP resistance to immigration reform and as a kind of xenophobic tail wagging the Republican Party dog.

more
http://www.salon.com/2014/05/23/tea_party_hero_steve_king_challenges_sen_chuck_schumer_to_a_duel/

[gratuitous]

1. Why "within arm's reach", Mr. King?

Planning on throwing a sucker punch if things don't go your way?

[pampango]

2. King and his tea party buddies as the "xenophobic tail wagging the Republican Party dog."

That is an accurate description.

[shenmue]

3. Duh

[surrealAmerican]

4. Oh, the poor thing ...

... his vocabulary doesn't contain the word "debate".

Somewhere, a former third-grade teacher is shaking her head, wondering how she failed him, or maybe just remembering what a slow kid he was.