Let’s start with the fact that I have no use at all for 65-year-old Republican Congressman Ted Yoho(ho) of Florida.
It actually hurts me to call him a crazy old coot and then realize he’s five — soon to be six — years younger than I am. But I can tell you at any age I would never have called a 31-year-old colleague “disgusting” or “crazy,” and even if I didn’t think I would be heard, I would never have called her a “fucking bitch.”
We’ve heard a lot about “Florida Man” in recent years. Some of the wackiest folks alive must live south of Valdosta and north of Havana, but the Tedster deserves to be near the top of the list after his disastrous run-in with Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in Congress last summer.
What caused this? Apparently, Ocasio-Cortez had spoken about the line between crimes of property and people in poverty. Yoho(ho) sought her out and said she was crazy, wagging his finger in her face like every annoying old man who ever lived. When she walked away from him, he called her a “fucking bitch.”
Ocasio-Cortez is of course the newly famous AOC, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress.
Now I suppose it’s possible to cut the Tedster a little slack on the “bitch” part of the insult. After all, until he was elected to Congress in 2012, he was a veterinarian. And before you thank him for his service, there are two fewer syllables if you’re looking for someone who was in the military.
Teddy was on pup patrol.
AOC was going to let it pass without further comment, but the Yoh-meister made a speech saying the story wasn’t true and that he would never have used the two-word epithet he was accused of using. He said he had two grown daughters, so he knew what language not to use.
Ocasio-Cortez fired back, eviscerating Teddy and giving us the line, “I am someone’s daughter, too.”
You want a real surprise? One of the strongest attacks on Yoho(ho) came from a syndicated political; cartoonist in Alabama. J.D. Crowe gave him the full python treatment.
If there’s one thing true about this, it’s that AOC has a much brighter future than Florida Man.