Rep. Alan Grayson, the left’s new favorite wildcard, may have finally gone too far. Grayson is the liberal who recently said the Republican health care plan was for people to “die quickly.” What could have been worse than that?
He called a woman a “K Street whore.”
Republicans and Democrats slammed Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) for calling Linda Robertson, an adviser to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, a “K Street whore” in a month-old radio interview that circulated on Capitol Hill Monday night.
“There’s no call for that language. No call for it. That’s absurd. If he was standing here now, I’d say that to him,” said Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.)
“He’s out of control,” added Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who is vice chairwoman of the House Republican Conference.
The remarks are the latest to surface in a string of controversial statements by Grayson, who said on the Alex Jones radio show that he believes Robertson, a former Enron lobbyist, is not qualified to pass judgment on intricate financial matters.
It’s clear that his colleagues’ opinion of him has suffered.
“Is this news to you that this guy’s one fry short of a Happy Meal?” asked Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.)
House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer defended Robertson, whom he said he knows.
“I think it’s inappropriate and unfair,” the Maryland Democrat said. He decried the “heated rhetoric” that he said interferes with the ability solve problems.
Grayson has at least one supporter in the Democrat party. President Barack Obama gave him a shout out while he was in Florida:
Obama, in introducing the members of Congress in attendance, called Grayson – along with Florida Reps. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Kendrick Meek – as “outstanding members of Congress.”
So much for bipartisanship.
A few other of Grayson’s great hits include calling Republicans “knuckle dragging Neanderthals” and referring to the current health care system in America as a holocaust, a move which drew criticism from the Anti-Defamation League.
A fry short might be a bit generous.
Update -
“I offer my sincere apology to Linda Robertson, an adviser to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke,” Grayson said in an emailed statement. “I did not intend to use a term that is often, and correctly, seen as disrespectful of women.”
In the emailed statement, Grayson gave further context to the comment, saying it was made “last month in the context of the debate over whether the Federal Reserve should be independently audited, was inappropriate, and I apologize.”
