Former GOP Rep. Allen West was critical of all five Democrats named to a House committee probing the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, but in a radio interview he took special exception to Rep. Tammy Duckworth, a fellow Iraq War veteran and a double amputee.
"I just don't know where her loyalties lie," West, a retired Army colonel, said Wednesday on
"The Janet Mefferd Show," about the first-term Illinois lawmaker who lost her legs and the use of her right arm in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in 2004.
"For her to have been a veteran and a wounded warrior for the United States Army, she should know that this is not the right thing," West continued. "And hopefully she will remember the oath of office that she took as an Army officer, and not the allegiance I guess she believes she has to the liberal progressives of the Democrat party."
The broadcast was first picked up and reposted by
Right Wing Watch, with reports appearing on several online outlets, including
Raw Story, Mediaite,
Huffington Post, and Media Matters.
Another Democrat on the House Select Benghazi Committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, said West "should be ashamed of himself" in an interview with
MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell.
West told Mefferd that Cummings doesn't belong on the Benghazi panel because of his conduct in a prior House probe of the IRS targeting of tea party PACs. West also said Benghazi panel appointee Rep. Adam Schiff of California is "not serious about this," based on Schiff's previous dismissal of the committee as a political ploy.
"On one side of the mouth, they're saying that this is something that should be dismissed," West told Mefferd. "Now all of a sudden, they're starting to bring up individuals who they want to have on that committee."
West mocked the two remaining Democrats, calling Washington state Rep. Adam Smith "geeky," and California Rep. Linda Sanchez "whiny."
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