Ames Progressive

I’m in Iowa City for Karl Rove’s $40,000 speech at the university tomorrow, paid for courtesy of student activities fees and the private F. Wendell Miller Fund.

Not to be too badly outdone, Iowa State — specifically, the College Republicans, Government of the Student Body, and apparently the World Affairs lectures committee (I must have dozed off during the meeting) — hosted a warmonger of its own this evening. Steven Bucci, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense, spoke at the Memorial Union at 6. “He was the Military Assistant to the Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and served through the 9/11 attack and the Global War on Terrorism,” the ISU lectures website states.

I’ll have thoughts on the Rove spectacle and a recent Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement “Rally and Lobbying Day” at the state capitol building before too long.

Until then, I leave you with the following words of wisdom from our own 5th district Representative Steve King. From The Huffington Post via the AP:

An Iowa Republican congressman said Friday that terrorists would be “dancing in the streets” if Democratic candidate Barack Obama were to win the presidency.

Rep. Steve King based his prediction on Obama’s pledge to pull troops out of Iraq, his Kenyan heritage and his middle name, Hussein.

“The radical Islamists, the al-Qaida … would be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on Sept. 11 because they would declare victory in this war on terror,” King said in an interview with the Daily Reporter in Spencer.

King said his comments were not meant to demean Obama but to warn how an Obama presidency would look to the world.

“His middle name does matter,” King said. “It matters because they read a meaning into that.”