The Wrongologist

What’s
Wrong Today:

The Daily News Egypt,
Egypt’s only English language newspaper reported on the visit by a delegation from
the US House of Representatives sent to Egypt to gather firsthand information
about the current situation in the country. The group was led by Rep.
Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) and included representatives Donna Edwards (D-MD),
Stephen Stockman (R-TX), Robert Pittenger (R-NC), and Lois Frankel (D-FL) along
with Tea party-backed Republican
Representatives Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and Steve King
(R-IA).

The group met with
several leaders while in Egypt, including interim president Adly Mansour,
Minister of Defense Abdel Fatah El-Sisi (also head of Egypt’s military), Coptic Pope Tawadros II, and President
of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, Anis A. Aclimandos. 

The major thing to
emerge from the visit was a bizarre press conference held by Bachmann, Gohmert
and King last Saturday on Egypt’s private satellite TV station ONTV.

WaPo’s Max Fisher reports that the trio thanked the country’s military for
overthrowing the Morsi government and at one point even seemed to suggest that
the Muslim Brotherhood had been behind the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United
States.

Here
is a link to the video of their press conference. 

Here is an extended
quote of Bachmann’s remarks from the video:

“Together, we’ve gone through
suffering. Together, the United States and Egypt, have dealt with the same
enemy…It’s a common enemy, and it’s an enemy called terrorism.”

 

\snip\


“We want to make sure that you have the Apache helicopters, the F-16s, [Wrongologist: The US has delayed F-16 sales due to the um, coup] the equipment that you have so bravely used to
capture terrorists and to take care of this menace that’s on your border…Many
of you have asked, do we understand who the enemy is? We can speak for
ourselves. We do.”

 

\snip\


“We have seen the threat that the Muslim Brotherhood has posed here for the
people in Egypt. We have seen the threat that the Muslim Brotherhood has posed
around the world. We stand against this great evil. We are not for them. We
remember who caused 9/11 in America. We remember who it was that killed 3,000
brave Americans. We have not forgotten.”

King and Gohmert
offered praise as well. King congratulated anti-Morsi Egyptians on “standing up
for liberty, standing up for freedom” in supporting the July 3 coup. He added,
“We stand against the Muslim Brotherhood. The American people do not support
the Muslim Brotherhood; we oppose all forms of terror and terrorism.”

Gohmert
compared El-Sissi to George Washington and said the “bloodthirsty Muslim
Brothers” want to “destabilize things” and seek “that large caliphate.” (He
also said that Egyptian Jews participated in the anti-Morsi movements). On the
other hand, Rep. Gohmert has
stated in the past that the Muslim Brotherhood had infiltrated American
politics. He also said that Huma Abedin, an American citizen and colleague of
Hillary Clinton (as well as wife of Anthony Weiner) was a member of the Muslim
Brotherhood.

The Wrongologist
wishes all of this was a joke but sadly, it seems that they announced their plan
to undermine US foreign policy on Egyptian TV.

To recap, this trio
of clowns:

• Went
  to a foreign capital with a very unstable political situation and a lot riding on our strategy, and undermined our policies

• Promised
  the Egyptian military an increase in military aid, the exact
  opposite of stated US policy

• Called
  Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood terrorists (which
  our government explicitly has not)

• Blames
  the Brotherhood for 9/11

This is all
breathtakingly wrong, it should be illegal. It’s sad when actual, sitting
Congress critters look more spectacularly stupid than Dennis Rodman does when
he visits Lil’ Kim in North Korea. It should get all three of these jackasses
tossed from the House. But hey, they’re Republicans attacking the President, so
who cares?

This is more than just
a random stunt from simpleton politicians. The official position of the United
States was that the post-overthrow violence was needlessly brutal and shocking,
so much so that aid to Egypt may well be suspended. And yet, Bachmann, Gohmert,
and King traveled to Cairo to deliver a conflicting message — because they
are Tea Party.

Don’t
you wonder who authorized this trip (John Boehner)? You do know who paid for
this trip that undermines our government’s positions, right? You paid for it,
and it seems that you will continue to pay for it for quite a while.

Why
is it that we don’t
hear how much this Bachmann, Gohmert clown show costs the taxpayers,
but we know they will be among the first to whine about how much it costs when
President Obama travels to visit world leaders? They make Sen. Johnny Volcano’s (R-AZ) outbursts in Syria look almost statesmanlike. 

It’s
embarrassing enough the Michele Bachmann is a four-term Congresswoman of the
United States of America. But please, can’t she just embarrass us in the USA?

Can’t
we just keep the crazy here at home?