Every month or so, the Heritage Foundation hosts a “Conversations With Conservatives” sounding board for the latest Tea Party messaging. What began as a talk about an omnibus spending bill quickly turned into a Benghazi and Obamacare word scramble.
On Benghazi, Reps. Louie Gohmert and Steve King reasserted themselves as members of the “cover-up!” caucus. When asked about the bipartisan report that revealed little new information about the Benghazi attack, Gohmert said, “Once we get all of that information, once this administration stops keeping the roadblock up to the truth, then you’ll see a bipartisan report that gives you real facts and not opinions.”
King connected Hillary Clinton’s much-criticized Iraq surge posturing to hint that she bungled Benghazi for political reasons. “They told us the same lies that they told America on Sunday TV,” King said. Rep. Michele Bachmann easily followed through with the alley-oop, knocking Clinton’s 2016 prospects: “Benghazi stands as the symbol of incompetence of the Obama administration, and it’s a high hurdle Secretary of State Clinton has to overcome in the future.”
Bachmann also capitalized on Politico’s ***EXCLUSIVE*** news that Sen. Rand Paul has started using a popular photo-sharing app: “Obamacare is the health care version of Snapchat: Now you see it, now you don’t.” Less delicately, Rep. Cynthia Lummis called Obamacare a “crap sandwich.” (After the Q&A ended, Bachmann could be heard explaining what Snapchat is to a colleague. “I’m on Snapchat,” she said. “That’s how I communicate with my kids every day.”)
One sympathetic questioner later asked King whether he would call for President Obama’s uncle Omar to appear before the House Judiciary Committee in relation to his recent DUI arrest. “That almost sounds like a constituent request,” King said, to laughter. “I think it would be very good for the American people to see drunken Uncle Omar testify.”
