House Dems dismiss Allen West's 'childlike' communist comments

Reps. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) and Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) on Thursday dismissed claims made earlier this week by Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) that they and other members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus were members of the Communist Party, and encouraged all members to stop making these sorts of charges.

"It's not true. It's a false statement. It is unfair. It is unkind," Ellison said on the House floor. "It's tough out here already, we don't need verbal false accusations against each other."

Ellison encouraged constituents to remind members of Congress why they were elected and urged his colleagues to keep their criticisms within the bounds of reason.

"I would just urge the public to remind them as a Congress that we need to have a little bit more civility around here," he said. "If you do want to make an ugly comment or a negative comment about your colleagues, at least try to make it somewhere within 10,000 miles of being true. This is absolutely false."

Johnson said accusations such as those made by West have no place in the rational and honest dialogue he and his Progressive Caucus colleagues seek to engage in with members from both sides of the aisle.

"To label folks as communists and socialists just because they believe in fairness for working people in this country, it's not true, and I think that he should be called out," he said.

Ellison declined the opportunity to return the rhetorical fire to Republicans across the aisle, calling such an exchange "childlike."

"There's a lot of ugly names you could call someone who has a right-wing perspective — on the extreme — but we don't engage in tit-for-tat because that's childlike, we're adults," he said. "We swore an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution, and that's what I'm going to do, I'm not going to be distracted by somebody who is not clear on what we are supposed to be doing over here."

West reiterated the "communist" comments he made last week, telling CNN on Thursday that progressivism was just a new name for the American communist party.

"At the turn of the century here in the United States of America, American communists renamed themselves progressives, but the strategy, the tactics, the ideology remains the same. When you're a member of a caucus that wanted to have a constitutional amendment to redistribute wealth in the United States of America, I don't think that's in keeping with the principles and values of this country," West said during an interview with Soledad O'Brien.

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