January 21, 2022 09:34 AM UTC

Anyone Left To Offend? Lauren Boebert Just Can't Help Herself

• 10 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

Media outlets in Israel overnight picked up on a Buzzfeed story yesterday, documenting an encounter in a U.S. Capitol elevator between freshman GOP controversy vortex Rep. Lauren Boebert and a group of Orthodox Jews on a tour of the building that…well, read it for yourself:

Members of the group, which was meeting with Rep. Tom Suozzi, were wearing yarmulkes, and the person coordinating the group is Orthodox, with a traditional beard.

One witness said the group, along with other members of Congress, was waiting for an elevator. When the doors opened, Boebert stepped out of the elevator and looked the group of visitors “from head to toe,” the witness said. Boebert then asked if they were there to conduct “reconnaissance.”

“When I heard that, I actually turned to the person standing next to me and asked, ‘Did you just hear that?’” a rabbi who was with the group told BuzzFeed News…

As readers know, Rep. Boebert has been the subject of much scrutiny over the last year over her actions in the days leading up to the January 6th, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol–in particular disputed allegations that Boebert hosted some kind of “reconnaissance tour” for individuals who later stormed the building. In addition, Boebert spent most of December in the hot seat as Democrats demanded Boebert be stripped of her committee assignments and/or censored for falsely and repeatedly suggesting that U.S. Capitol Police consider Rep. Ilhan Omar to be a terrorist threat.

Reporting in The Forward today, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s Gabe Friedman and Forward reporter Jacob Kornbluh spoke with Ezra Friedlander, the Orthodox Jewish lobbyist who organized the group’s visit to the Capitol to commemorate the end of the Iran hostage crisis. The JTA’s story has been picked up by numerous Israeli outlets including the Jerusalem Post and the Times of Israel:

“It was totally inappropriate to label a group of Americans, some of whom who were visibly Jewish and of the Hasidic tradition, trying to insinuate something that does not exist,” Friedlander said…

Friedlander brushed off Boebert’s excuse that she wasn’t able to identify them as Jewish. “If she didn’t see my yarmulke, she clearly saw my long Hasidic suit, she clearly saw my beard,” he said. “And as my wife likes to remind me, when you’re in Washington, you stand out. I don’t think that what she’s saying is a portrayal of the truth, unfortunately.”

Whether or not Boebert was able to recognize traditional Jewish clothing and appearance isn’t really relevant. It’s much more likely that Boebert simply perceived this tour group to be composed of Semitic-looking foreigners of some description, and fired off the first xenophobic thought that came to mind–associating them with Islamic terrorism. Obviously, the more credit we give Boebert for knowing who she was disparaging, the worse this gets–so by suggesting that Boebert may not have specifically understood this was a group of Jewish people, we’re being as charitable as we possibly can. Some will argue too much so.

Either way, this is another plainly unacceptable instance of Boebert making a disparaging race-based presumption–this time against random Capitol visitors instead of her colleagues. If this had been a group of ordinary white Americans touring the Capitol, Boebert wouldn’t have found them out of place to crack her little “joke” at all. Everybody knows it.

This morning, as the Colorado Springs Gazette’s Ernest Luning reports, Boebert’s Republican primary opponent Don Coram tore into Boebert over this latest incident:

“If Lauren Boebert would spend more time in Colorado with the people of the 3rd Congressional District instead of jetting around the country like an out-of-touch celebrity, maybe she would understand why this is not only disgusting but unacceptable. Especially after the recent events in Texas,” he said.

Referencing a furor sparked late last year after a video clip surfaced of Boebert making anti-Muslim remarks about U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, Coram continued: “One might think Lauren would have learned from her most recent encounter involving an elevator, obviously not (maybe she should take the stairs). Instead, she continues to act more like Marjorie Taylor Greene each day by spewing garbage like this. We deserve better.”

Although the campaign to censure and/or bench Boebert from her committee assignments over her comments about Rep. Omar fizzled over the holiday break, this latest controversy is almost certain to re-energize calls to take some kind of disciplinary action. Boebert’s rank ignorance and openly prejudicial behavior in the halls of Congress is a bipartisan disgrace to the institution. Whether by ignorance or genuine antipathy for Orthodox Jewish people, Boebert has now offended a whole new and much more influential community than when she disparaged Ilhan Omar.

How much is enough, folks? Surely Kevin McCarthy must be doing the math by now.