Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) continues to amaze me - this time with his unethical slicing-and-dicing of Pres. Barack Obama's words in his book, The Audacity of Hope.  I clicked on an ad which brought me to the "Right To Work Foundation's" anti-Obama-anti-labor petition, and the Obama quote at the top grabbed my attention.  King snipped it this way: ""I owe those unions... When their leaders call, I do my best to call them back right away. I don't mind feeling obligated."

Having read the book, I knew that that couldn't be an accurate re-telling.  Sure enough, Obama was speaking of the primary campaign in 2004, how the AFL-CIO endorsed one of his opponents and how a few unions "broke ranks" and supported him instead.  Those unions were "the Illinois Federation of Teachers, SEIU, AFSCME, and UNITE HERE, representing textile, hotel, and foodservice workers."  Using his quote after seeing this context is unethical.

So, King then clips off the "So" off the front, which would have indicated that there was a good reason for saying he owes them.  He then puts an ellipsis in between "unions" and "When", while NOT putting an ellipsis between "right away" and "I don't mind".  The only reason I can come up for his ellipsis-shifting is to give the impression that he is accurately quoting. 

But, his second-worst offense is in clipping "...feeling obligated" WITHOUT including the context there.  The rest of that sentence is important, but the next few paragraphs help ensure that King's quote-hatchet job belongs in the irresponsible, unethical, sleazy category that we expect more from talk-show hosts and Newsmax columnists than from our Congressmen.  (I'll just give the rest of the sentence and let you click on

pp.117-120, The Audacity of Hope - it is worth the reminder of how Obama carefully set forth his beliefs that politicians can NOT be beholden to any particular interests.)

That any Republican feels this kind of sleazy twisting is acceptable is sad.  That a Republican Congressman does it and feels that it is justified should warrant some sort of action against him.  Unfortunately, it seems that this has become SOP for too many Republican officeholders.  And, it has become so prevalent that it is hard for the rest of us to keep up and to keep pointing these sleaze tactics out.  Very sad.