At first I thought that this person, Hank Johnson, may have some sort of mental disease as he was wrestling with the relatively simple terms in the beginning of the video. Unfortunately, it looks like I may be dead wrong – I think he is simply dumb as a box of dead crabs. Any wonder why Congress is reviled, hated and mocked?
It had to be all the good Admiral could do to not laugh out loud at this theory – I wouldn’t have been able to keep my laughter contained.
Dan! That’s exactly the comment I just left @my LJ-friend blog: the Admiral exhibits admirable self-control; I’d be under the table laughing my guts out.
The man is clearly off his meds or in his cups or both.
I wonder if he is actually sick in a big way. That would make it worse, as doesn’t Congress have some sort of responsibility to excuse him from his job if he has a serious mental issue?
When I first heard of this video and hadn’t yet viewed it I had been giving him the benefit of the doubt by assuming that he was, somewhat inartfully, trying to describe some sort of environmental “tipping point”. But having watched it, with his added hand gestures, I have to agree with a commenter over at Ace: “Hole. Lee. Crap”!
Sounded drunk. Some illnesses mimic that, though, don’t they?
Aha, he is battling Hep C.
http://www.ajc.com/news/u-s-rep-hank-230506.html
I simply can’t believe his contituents and/or other members of Congress just sit around and let this guy who clearly isn’t thinking straight keep his job.
So the guy skipped geography, geometry, english, and math. But he got A’s in Self-Esteem which is all his school system was competent to teach. And that was enough to get him elected. Now he represents people who have a similar background. A little more money for Education will raise everyone’s Self-Esteem and develop a new class of world leaders.
All Liberals have lots of Self-Esteem and nothing else.
This guy is Cynthia McKinney’s successor. Their presence in Congress is an indictment of the gerrymandering of districts to create the maximum number of uncontested districts. No doubt the Honorable Hank “Hep-C” Johnson will be returned to his seat with a resounding majority in November. Redistricting by the politicians for the politicians allows the nutjobs who dedicate their lives to party politics to nominate whatever goofball best reflects their opinions because they know the seat is safe. The voters don’t really have a choice and the don’t want one. We need more contested districts so that parties cannot get away with sending their nutcases to rule over us.
Mrs. Davis – sadly, he is probably an upgrade from McKinney. But isn’t there something in the Constitution that says that Congress can remove a person if he or she is obviously having mental difficulties? Maybe one of our commenters better educated on the subject could shine some light on that. I mean, how far do we let someone go before we deem them unfit to serve?
That’s a dangerous path you’re heading down, Dan. An individual congresscritter, even a senator, doesn’t really have much power or for long. The people should be able to fix it. And if they don’t, our problems are a lot bigger than the congresscritter. And that’s my point about McKinney and redistricting. We’ve got the bigger problem now.
Agree that we have bigger problems wrt gerrymandered districts. And you are also correct in that if that district doesn’t recall this guy, well, we get what we get.
I went back and watched the whole episode from the House Armed Services website and the poor guy literally cannot connect his thoughts – just before this scene happened he said he didn’t have any questions, but decided to chime in anyway, and now he is a sensation for the moment as this video and audio has gone viral. Sigh. What a country.
It was a joke, people. The relation between Johnson and the Admiral goes way back and they have been doing their version of Laurel and Hardy forever.
He has hepatitis C and could be having encephalopathy. That will do strange things. We had one patient who would go around the ward at night biting other patients’ toes. Still, I would expect some evidence of jaundice or other manifestation of severe liver failure if that were the case. I suspect he is just stupid. Have you checked his other concerns ? From Ace of Spades:
I contacted Rep. Hank (D-Goin’ down for the third time) Johnson’s office and asked them if the good Representative had any other fears he wished to share. I was told that Rep. Johnson also fears:
-Future missions to the moon will cause Earth’s satellite to “go all crazy and spin out of orbit”
-Drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge will mean “heavy drilling equipment will cause the poles to shift and Kansas City will end up as the new North Pole”
-Excessive use of the office microwave will cause “the oxygen in the oven to interact with the atmosphere, making it overheat and burn away.”
MK – that is some bigtime stupid. As an aside, that Kansas City mention may, just may, earn you a coveted plate of bar-b-que from Jay Manifold, but that is certainly his call.
No, seriously, Chuck is right. It’s a bit they have been doing it since the 80s. On the set of “Top Gun.”
I’ve seen this all over the right-ish side of the blogosphere all day and can’t understand why everyone’s so quick to jump on what was pretty obviously a figurative statement.
I’m all in favor of highlighting stupid-things-lefties-say, but Gore, Pelosi and the One provide us with plenty.
It doesn’t matter if he is sick, or simply stupid, or if he was another Einstein.
No one is smart enough and knowledgeable enough, and morally trustworhy enough, and anything enough to have the power to stick their noses into every aspect of the lives of 300 million people, and control a multi-trillion dollar economy, and make decisions that intimately affect the personal lives, and work, and everything else of an entire nation.
The demands for a strictly limited government, and scupulous adherence to the constitutional elements that were intended to restrict the state, not give it the authority to expand endlessly and cancerously, are not dependent on the mental or other qualities of the members of the state apparatus.
All members of the government, elected, appointed, or simply hired at an houly wage, are presumed by the very structure of our founding documents to be dangerously deficient in all areas, especially moral scruples.
Thus the repeated restrictions on the state, and the repeated references to the rights of the people.
In a properly constituted state, of severely limited scope and powers, it wouldn’t matter if the electorate occasionally chose an idiot, a fool, or a crook. He, or she, would not have the power to do too much damage before their term expired, and they would once again be expected to stand for election and have their record in office critically examined.
The purpose of limited government is to minimize the damage that fools such as this can do. Remove the limits, and we have the current situation—corruption and incompetence on a scale so vast that it may very well cause the collapse of the wealthiest and most powerful nation in history.
Geez, people! Those that are contemplating the Top Gun Buddy story: that. was. a joke.
Invented by Neoneocon for April’s fool day.
Get a grip!
It’s like a game of telephone. Srsly.
He’s just your average affirmative action hire.
No, alas – it was not an April Fool’s joke, and no, the good representative was not using an in-artful metaphor. About the funniest comment/explaination I read elsewhere was that “his thoughts were just taking a long medicated stroll through Planet WTF.”
Sgt. Mom: I liked the one @Neo’s thread – “the islands absolutely can and do capsize: in a bathtub, when you play with GI Joe stuff”.
Dan from Madison says:
But isn’t there something in the Constitution that says that Congress can remove a person if he or she is obviously having mental difficulties?
Each House determines the “Qualifications of its own Members” per Article I, Section 5. However twisted and outside of the reality that those of us not part of the Nomenklatura have to endure, etc.; is there anything in how he acts and what he says that is outside of the worldview of the Democrat caucus that controls the body that is somehow proud to present itself as the United States House of Representatives?
Yes, he is mentally ill and/or both ignorant and stupid enough to make Ashton Kutcher look like Sir Isaac Newton presiding over the Royal Society. And probably as morally sound as Gilles de Rais’ more evil twin brother. But he fits into the mainstream of the Democratic caucus in Congress. Just ask them. There has not been one word of criticism of his actions and questions from that quarter.
Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira
les aristocrates àla lanterne!
Subotai Bahadur
Thanks Subotai Bahadur, good comment.
I am thinking outriggers for Guam. Underwater outriggers so no one would see them or hit them with a boat. I could guarantee Guam would not flip and capsize for, say, 180 million dollars? And I can guarantee the project is shovel ready, just as soon as the check clears.