What comes around... continues to go around. Gerry Lange's comments seem to be still making the e-mail rounds

I had a good chuckle this am. I had a reader send me a note:

Have you heard this? The end is the kicker, where Lange suggests that the War in Iraq is Satanism

and it included a mp3 file titled: Rhoden_lange.zip. And I thought about it for a moment, and listened to it..... And wait-a-minute. That's MY mp3 that I put together from testimony back in January.

Yes, my own stuff in starting to come back as tidbits about the year's campaigns.

The Lange stuff returns about the time we hit the election, so it means that it's making the rounds. I thought this was powerful stuff back in January where Gerry Lange noted that if he knew ahead of time America would be attacked on September 11th, he would absorb the hit because he believes in turning the other cheek, and that any retaliation is satanism.

Here's a portion my original post on the topic as written here:

I really questioned that comment, because it was a pretty outrageous charge. Lange suggesting that “we got what we deserved on 9/11?” Nah. It couldn’t be true. Could it?

It sounds so outrageous that a state legislator in South Dakota, one of the reddest of red states, would make a statement so vile as to imply that nearly 3000 Americans deserved to die because a terrorist organization decided they hate America. So, I decided to look into it.

In 2003, the legislature heard HCR 1018, A measure primed by Representative Gerald Lange asking the US to commit to a policy of containment in Iraq. I listened to it over Lunch as I ate. And at about 30 minutes into it, I almost lost my meal in shock and horror.

Don't think Representative Lange said that we deserved what we got? Maybe not in those exact words. But I'll leave you to listen and decide for yourselves. Because what he said certainly implied that the United States was in some way at fault.

And worse yet, when the question was posed to him “if he could go back in time and consider a pre-emptive strike against al-queda, would you carry it out?” Part of his response was “I would absorb the punishment.”

What I've done is taken the introduction to the bill, and then Representative Rhoden's line of questioning of Lange on the measure (with Gerry's responses). The clip I've selected from the testimony ends with a response to Representative Rhoden's question "Do you believe defending your home country is satanism?"

Think that’s not true? Think that’s too outrageous? Listen for yourselves.

I have trimmed it down considerably from the 45 minutes plus of bill testimony. If you're worried I've taken things out of context, here's the link for the bill from the LRC, and here’s the full committee hearing on the bill (Real Media). Listen to it in it’s entirety, and you can draw your own conclusions.

Wow. This one still gives me shivers.

Just remember that when he's asking for your vote.