Claiming to be “offended,” a GOP and Tea Party Congressman walked out of President Obama’s speech at the annual National Prayer Breakfast yesterday. The office of Republican Rep. Phil Gingrey of Georgia confirms Gingrey was “offended by what the congressman said was an injection of political rhetoric into an occasion of non-partisan reflection.”
Apparently, it’s perfectly acceptable for Republicans to inject religion into politics 365 days a year, but not acceptable to inject politics into religion just one day a year, at a highly-political event masquerading as a religious one. Frankly, Obama should have not attended at all, but Republicans needed to be told the leader of the free world is in fact a Christian.
“Talaber, the spokeswoman for Gingrey, said the Georgia congressman – a devout Catholic — listened to “several minutes†of Obama’s remarks,” reports Jim Galloway at the AJC’s Political Insider.
“[Gingrey] said he was disappointed, because he wanted to know what was in the president’s heart, and not just rhetoric,†the spokeswoman said. “So he said that he decided to quietly get up and leave because he felt that it wasn’t the time or the place, and that the president didn’t seem to be aware of the meaning of the breakfast or why so many people came to hear him speak. He was offended by the very tone of the speech.â€
Talaber said she didn’t know whether any other members of Congress who followed Gingrey’s example. “He wasn’t trying to rally the troops,†she said.
Gingrey has a history of lying, including claiming that the federal government can tell GM how much to charge for automobiles, “literally one person with a green card” can bring in more than 270 of his relatives, and under the Affordable Care Act, “a bunch of bureaucrats decide whether you get care, such as continuing on dialysis or cancer chemotherapy,” all according to Politifact.