March 07, 2019 04:30 PM UTC

Buck Joins Weird GOP Faction Against Anti-Hate Resolution

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• by: Colorado Pols

FOX News excitedly reports on a resolution that passed the U.S. House today in part to respond to controversial remarks by a Democratic member of Congress from Minnesota suggesting that supporters of Israel are pushing for “allegiance to a foreign country”–a resolution that by the end saw only a handful of Republicans voting against:

After several days of infighting and a near-rebellion by rank-and-file Democrats, as well as a major last-minute revision, the House on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan resolution that only indirectly condemned Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s repeated ‘anti-Semitic’ and ‘pernicious’ comments — without mentioning her by name.

The final vote was 407 to 23, with 23 Republicans voting no, and all Democrats voting yes. Iowa GOP Rep. Steve King, who faced his own bipartisan blowback for comments purportedly defending white nationalists, voted present.

The final draft of the resolution was expanded to condemn virtually all forms of bigotry, in what Republicans characterized as a cynical ploy to distract from Omar’s remarks. Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert, speaking on the House floor to announce that he would vote against the resolution, remarked, “Now [the resolution] condemns just about everything. … Hatred for Israel is a special kind of hatred. It should never be watered down.”

Readers will have sharply varying opinions of this Rep. Ilhan Omar’s remarks and this resolution, based largely on their own view of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict–and our purpose here is not to sort out that much larger and more fractious question. But whether or not you believe Rep. Omar’s comments amount to “a special kind of hatred” for Israel or anyone else, the inability of these 23 Republicans to condemn anything but anti-Semitism, to include Rep. Steve King’s unapologetic pining for our nation’s white supremacist past, stands out in our minds much more.

Among Colorado’s delegation, the only vote against this resolution came from arch-conservative Rep. Ken Buck. We’ve haven’t seen a statement from Buck about this vote, but it wouldn’t surprise us if his rationalization like that of Rep. Louie Gohmert is the extra-special horror of anti-Semitism compared to, you know, Steve King.

On a subject where there is plenty of dishonesty to go around, some people are still more dishonest than others.