Politico.com:

Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar? Not Rep. Elijah Cummings, according to Rep. Darrell Issa.

The California Republican and chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee awkwardly put his foot in his mouth when he compared Cummings, his ranking member, to “a little boy with his hand caught in the cookie jar” during a hearing Thursday on the IRS scandal.

Issa — who recently found himself in trouble with GOP leadership for calling White House press secretary Jay Carney a “paid liar” — made the kids-rhyme reference in anger when Cummings (D-Md.) suggested that he was linking the IRS targeting of conservative groups to the White House.

“I’m always shocked when the ranking member seems to want to say, like a little boy whose hand has been caught in a cookie jar, ‘What hand? What cookie?’ I’ve never said it leads to the White House,” Issa said.

He walked back the comments about Cummings, an African-American, a few hours later.

“I want to make sure I make something very clear: When I referred to my ranking member … I took a shortcut in how I expressed it, and I want to make it very clear: that when I talk about the ‘little boy putting his hand in the cookie jar’ … that is something that I grew up with, and it is intended to be about a small child and in no way is the use of ‘boy’ or ‘little boy’ to mean anything else,” Issa said.

Issa has pissed off just about everyone under the sun this past year. He was nasty about women in general, Hillary, and now he puts his foot in it with Mr. Cummings. His timing is really bad. Perhaps he needs a handler or at least someone to pull his feet out of his mouth.

12 Thoughts to “Issa removes foot from mouth”

  1. No. He did not put his foot in.

    Only hyper-sensitive partisans would think that there was anything racial in his analogy. It is a very common analogy. The word “boy’ is not automatically racist. Cummings needs to put his big boy pants on and man up. Instead of playing defense for the IRS, he needs to support the American people.

    1. 1. Cummings didn’t complain. The press did.

      2. Who appointed you our racial sensitivity expert?

      3. The Tea Party is NOT the American people. The Tea Party has tried to pull so many fast ones on this. Additionally they were also not the only folks targetted.
      I applaud Cummings for trying to get to the bottom of it.

      4. Smart people avoid ‘boy’ references when dealing with black men. It’s just a good habit to develop. I learned that 40 years ago.

  2. middleman

    Darrell Issa is the reincarnation of Joe McCarthy. He regularly pronounces the outcome of investigations BEFORE they start, demeans and threatens witnesses, lies at will and generally out McCarthy’s the old red-baiter.

    Fast and Furious-gate, Benghazi-gate, IRS-gate, all were going to bring the president down and all fizzled because there was no “gate” there. Issa is a joke.

  3. @Moon-howler
    Cummings has complained before.

    I did. Didn’t you get the email? I’m sorry.

    The Tea Party has pulled no fast ones and the IRS scandal is now reaching the offices in DC.

    Hyper PC people worry about “boy” references when dealing with black men when they are not using the word as an insult. If black men get insulted by the NORMAL use of a word, that’s their problem.

    1. I expect perhaps you aren’t old enough to understand the really nasty part of that word and how it was used to dehumanize adult men. It just ISN”T done. Why would anyone do something they think might be offensive to someone else unless they want to insult them?

      If Issa didn’t have a history of insulting groups of people, perhaps. However, he does have a really bad track record.

    2. Of course the tea party has pulled fast ones over tax write offs. It is documented all over the place. Where is the social good? A fw coloring books? bwaaaahahahahaha.

      As for Cummings complaining? He probably had every right to complain, whatever it was over, if dealing with this congress.

    3. Cargo, the fact remains that all the tea parties are political organizations. Trying to get a different tax status is just bogus. Noone should be able to write off a donation to any of the tea parties, any more than they should be able to write off a tax donation to the Democrats or the Republicans.

  4. @middleman
    Fast and Furious… Funny…. if there is no “gate” then why did the President intervene and claim executive privilege?

    Benghazi…still under investigation…why are the survivors being prevented from talking to Congress? Even the press doesn’t know who they are.

    IRS…the fact that you are not concerned by the abuse of power by a government agency…and ADMITTED abuse of power says a lot.

    1. I think we are very much concerned over abuse of power, that is the reason we aren’t complaining when the tea party gets snagged. I guess it all depends on who you see as abuser and who you see as abusee.

  5. middleman

    Cargo, you are once again (and I assume intentionally) missing my point.

    Issa is out to get the president, whom he has called a criminal in public. He has not tried to conceal this fact. He has not even come close to tying the president to any of the “gates,” your mystery “survivors” and executive privilege notwithstanding.

    I am very concerned about IRS abuses if there were any, but there’s no reason (evidence) to think Obama had anything to do with it. I am MUCH more concerned about the abuses of power and breaches of privacy begun by Bush and continued by Obama, which is something you CAN blame Obama for…

  6. @middleman
    No..I got your point. You downplayed existing scandals. Obama has NOT been proven to be involved. But he IS protecting those that are.

    Its hard to get anyone to be held responsible when the bureaucracy involved is stone walling. and lying.

    @Moon-howler
    I’m old enough. I know that calling a black man “boy” is grounds to get a beating.
    I’m also mature enough to realize that there are people both ignorant enough and/or corrupt enough to use any semblance of “racism” to advance an agenda.
    As for the Tea Party…. if they are being PROPERLY vetted, unlike what they were subjected to…fine. But while the IRS is at it, perhaps they should look at the liberal political groups that they rubber stamped while holding up nothing but Tea Party groups. One group changed its name to a more “liberal sounding” name… presto! Passed.

    1. They did take a long hard look at some liberal groups. Talk to Eric Byler. They got held up for some time.

      Now here it goes, I don’t see why any of the groups should get non-profit status. They are all political groups, in my mind.

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