On Monday, longtime GOP Congressman Peter (“Pete”) King announced that he would not seek reelection. “After 28 years of spending 4 days a week in Washington, D.C.,” he wrote on Facebook, “it is time to end the weekly commute and be home in Seaford.”
“This was,” he added, “not an easy decision. But there is a season for everything and Rosemary and I decided that, especially since we are both in good health, it is time to have the flexibility to spend more time with our children and grandchildren.”
And so it’s time for him to move on, to leave D.C, and to have fun with the (grand)kids.
Normally, when a career politician retires, their colleagues respond rather kindly. Or at least by not offending anyone. After all, the resignation signals the end of the political battle, at least for that person. That’s when other politicians pretend to be adults and polite.
See, for example, this tweet by Senator Chuck Schumer:
Peter King stood head & shoulders above everyone else
He’s been principled & never let others push him away from his principles
He’s fiercely loved America, Long Island, and his Irish heritage and left a lasting mark on all 3
I will miss him in Congress & value his friendship https://t.co/GSXizZ2c5D
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) November 11, 2019
Sadly, however, not everybody is so well-mannered. Case in point, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. Instead of wishing Rep. King well in the rest of his life, she insulted him for supposedly being an Islamophobe. She ended her tweet with a nasty “good riddance.”
Peter King is an Islamophobe who held McCarthyite hearings targeting American Muslims, said “there are too many mosques in this country” and blamed Eric Garner for his own death at the hands of police.
Good riddance. https://t.co/cYZOrnaK2M
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) November 11, 2019
“Peter King is an Islamophobe who held McCarthyite hearings targeting American Muslims,” Rep. Omar writes, “said ‘there are too many mosques in this country’ and blamed Eric Garner for his own death at the hands of police. Good riddance.”
Ah, it sure is great to see Rep. Omar being so well-mannered, isn’t it? No radicalization here, where even a retirement announcement is deemed a fantastic opportunity to smack around someone who dares have different views than Her Ladyship.
Or, as Twitter-user @jfny puts it: “Can’t you have some class, and say something like ‘while our differences are big, I wholeheartedly wish him the best and thank him for his service?'”
The answer to that question is, obviously: no, she can’t do that. Apparently, “having class” is above Rep. Omar’s paygrade.
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