Remarks About Barack Obama
On March 7, 2008, during his press engagements to announce his reelection campaign, King made remarks about Senator and Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama and his middle name, saying:
I don't want to disparage anyone because of their race, their ethnicity, their name - whatever their religion their father might have been, I'll just say this: When you think about the optics of a Barack Obama potentially getting elected President of the United States -- I mean, what does this look like to the rest of the world? What does it look like to the world of Islam? I will tell you that, if he is elected president, then the radical Islamists, the al-Qaida, the radical Islamists and their supporters, will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11 because they will declare victory in this War on Terror. Additionally, his middle name (Hussein) does matter. It matters because they read a meaning into that in the rest of the world. If he were strong on national defense and said "I'm going to go over there and we're going to fight and we're going to win, we'll come home with a victory," that's different. But that's not what he said. They will be dancing in the streets if he's elected president. That has a chilling aspect on how difficult it will be to ever win this Global War on Terror.
Then on March 10, King defended his comments to The Associated Press, saying "(Obama will) certainly be viewed as a savior for them.... That's why you will see them supporting him, encouraging him."
Obama said he did not take the comments too seriously, describing King as an individual who thrives on making controversial statements to get media coverage. He said, "I would hope Senator McCain would want to distance himself from that kind of inflammatory and offensive remarks." The McCain campaign disavowed King's comments, saying "John McCain rejects the type of politics that degrades our civics…and obviously that extends to Congressman King's statement."
In mid-January 2009, King acknowledged that terrorists were not dancing in the streets, and in fact "They have made statements against Obama." He also said that he found Obama’s decision to use his middle name, "Hussein", when he is sworn in as the 44th President of the United States on January 20, 2009, to be "bizarre" and “a double-standard."
Steve King said on a radio show on June 14, 2010 that President Obama's policies favor black people. On G. Gordon Liddy's radio program, King said, "The president has demonstrated that he has a default mechanism in him that breaks down the side of race - on the side that favors the black person in the case of Prof. Gates and officer Crowley."
Read more about this topic: Steve King
Famous quotes containing the words remarks about and/or remarks:
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