EmailABC News’ John R. Parkinson (@JRPabcDC) reports:
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, an African-American congresswoman from Texas, today spoke out on the House floor to question why some lawmakers are treating President Barack Obama disrespectfully during the negotiations to increase the debt limit.
“What makes it difficult is we have leadership in the other body that is Republican that says their main job is to defeat President Obama in 2012,” Jackson Lee said, referencing recent comments by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell last Sunday.
McConnell, R-Kentucky, appeared on Fox News Sunday last weekend and repeated his belief that “the single most important thing [Republicans] want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”
Today Jackson Lee asked, “Why is there such a devastating attitude from our friends on the other side of the aisle?”
“I am particularly sensitive to the fact that only this president…has received the kind of attacks and disagreements and inability to work,” Jackson Lee, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said. “Only this one. Read between the lines.”
“What is different about this president that should put him in a position that he should not receive the same kind of respectful treatment of when it is necessary to raise the debt limit in order to pay our bills, something required by both statutes and the 14th amendment,” she continued.
Jackson Lee, D-Texas, also cited the contentious debate over the Affordable Care Act as an example of lawmakers being disrespectful to the president, noting that she had “never seen the level of [disrespect] depicting of the president of the United States by Americans as I had during that debate.”
“I do not understand what I think is the maligning and maliciousness of this president. Why is he different?” the Texas Democrat asked. “In my community that is the question we raise. In the minority community that is a question being raised. Why is this president being treated so disrespectfully?”
“He is no different than any other president that has served, and I beg this House and I beg this Congress to treat him with the dignity that that office deserves,” she concluded. “Get on with our work. Get on with solving the problems of the American people – a diversely, multicultural nation.”