A House Republican leader reportedly told President Obama “I cannot even stand to look at you” during shutdown negotiations, according to Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL).
In a Facebook post Sunday , Durbin made the chilling allegation against an unnamed GOP official:
“Many Republicans searching for something to say in defense of the disastrous shutdown strategy will say President Obama just doesn’t try hard enough to communicate with Republicans,” he wrote on his page. “What are the chances of an honest conversation with someone who has just said something so disrespectful?”
Durbin didn’t detail when the meeting occurred, and his spokesman declined further comment to The Huffington Post .
During the government shutdown , President Obama attended several meetings with congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle. Attendees included House Republicans, House Democrats, Senate democrats and Senate Republicans, though they were all met with separately.
Because of this, some have cast doubt on Durbin’s claim, since it would be unlikely that he would have attended an exclusive-Republican meet with the President.
Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, challenged Durbin to provide more details to back up his claim.
“Senator Durbin’s accusation is a serious one, and it appears to have been invented out of thin air. The senator should disclose who told him this account of events, retract his reckless allegation immediately, and apologize.”
Even some on the Democratic side have denied Durbin’s allegations, including White House press secretary Jay Carney. He said that the incident Durbin alleged never actually happened during his daily briefing on Wednesday.
Still, we can’t help but wonder if this entire story is being a little forced by the media, and whether Durbin’s post made some sort of racial implication. One of the comments on his original post fully accepted a racial reading of the “can’t stand to look at you” line, and wrote:
“The media is finally picking up on the underlying racist tone to all of this. I don’t know why it took them 5 years, but I like what Congressman Luis Gutierrez said on Windy City Live last Monday: ‘If President Obama proposed sunlight, the Republicans would be opposed to it.’ ”
Whether that has anything to do with anything, we leave up to you. Is the media trying too hard with this story? Does the unnamed House GOP official’s alleged comment sound racial to you, if it was even said at all?
[Image: Wikimedia Commons]
