Iowa’s Rep. Steve King Thursday accused President Obama of “lowering American values” and butting into issues unrelated to his real job.
He divided America over silly issues like the “beer summit,” after injecting his opinion into a Boston matter that belonged at the local level, Mr. King said from the House floor, Newsmax reported. He jumped into Arizona’s immigration law, a state issue. And he plowed into the gay cultural battle head first, reaching out with a personal phone call to congratulate an NBA player who announced his homosexuality — a move hardly in line with presidential governance, Mr. King said.
“I hear the president reducing or lowering American values by his comments that take place in the public and in the press,” Mr, Kings said, Newsmax reported. “Think about the things that he’s chosen sides on.”
Mr. King referred specifically to the 2009 incident involving black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., who was arrested by a white police officer after a dispute outside the professor’s home.
“First of all, no president would engage in an incident like that,” Mr. King said, in Newsmax. “But he did and he drove a wedge.”
The president did similarly when “Arizona passed their immigration law,” Mr. King said. “The president had to do a profile of the type of person that he alleged might be impacted negatively by that bill, when the bill specifically said that couldn’t happen.”
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• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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