Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) on Tuesday said Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) and Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R), vocal critics of President Obama, remind him of the hyenas in “The Lion King."
“Did you ever see the play 'The Lion King'? Don't they remind you of the hyenas?" he asked MSNBC’s Martin Bashir. “You know human nature; it’s a weakness of character.”
West, a favorite of the Tea Party movement, has been outspoken in his criticism of Obama and the Democrats, frequently using colorful comparisons. This week, he told them to get their “message of equality of achievement … the hell out of the United States of America.” Also this week, Brewer was photographed pointing her finger at the president in an apparent confrontation after handing him a letter expressing her “fundamental” disagreement with his economic policy.
“President Obama doesn’t engage in any of this kind of nonsense. To some extent, he’s our ‘Lion King,’ fortunately,” Moran said. “There’s all these other hyenas in the background, trying to cause trouble. I think they should get what they deserve, which is to be completely ignored."
Moran went on to say that West is not “representative of the African-American community or of the Republican Party, let alone of the American public.”
He offered a harsh comparison between West and Obama.
"He just seems clueless not that he has climbed aboard ship,” he said of West. “He's climbed this ladder of opportunity that was constructed by so many of his ancestors' sweat, sacrifice, blood, you know they did everything they could for his generation to be successful. But now that he's climbed aboard ship, instead of reaching down and steadying the ladder, he wants to push it off. 'I'm up here. If you're not with me, too bad.’
“And President Obama, fortunately, is the kind of guy that says 'I was very fortunate to get where I am and I'm going to spend my life trying to steady that ladder of opportunity by reducing college tuition and training our workers, trying to get a decent job for everybody,” he continued. “Making sure that while I'm African-American, it really doesn't matter. What matters is my commitment to public service, my love for this country, and I'm going to leave a constructive legacy.'"
