I have to make the point that when you challenge the mendacity of the leader or another member, there is an opportunity to rise to a point of order, there is an opportunity to make a motion to take the gentleman's words down, however many of the members are off on other endeavors and I would make the point that the leader and the speaker have established their integrity and their mendacity for years in this Congress and I don't believe it can be effectively challenged... - Representative Steve King (R-Iowa), January 7, 2011

Talking Points Memo has a great thread on it here.

For those few who are still mystified, "mendacity" is another word for dishonesty. I'm not about to challenge the mendacity of any GOP House member, and certainly not of Boehner. They've built their careers on mendacity.

King has, in effect, told the truth when he didn't mean to. He's admitted, albeit inadvertently, that his party's leadership and membership is a bunch of professional liars who have built their careers on mendacity.

Oops!

Now, this is supposed to be a substantive diary, not just a link to TPM, and in fact I do have some small substance for you. I'm still working on it, but I wanted to get this out there to the folks here on Kos, because as far as I could tell from a search, it hasn't been diaried yet.

This appears to be yet another effect of the GOP's crusade against education. And King's election is yet another effect as well - because it took a majority of people who don't think he's a moron to elect him. To my mind, it's a stunning demonstration of the Dunning-Kruger effect. King obviously thinks he's competent to do this job, but he can't even be bothered to understand words that are part of the average tenth-grader's vocabulary.

How is it that people like this get elected? The demonization of science, of education, of factual information - that's at least one jumping-off point. As long as people vote with their hindbrains and emotion instead of with their intellect and reason, we're going to continue to get Steve Kings elected to our legislatures. We need to find ways to prevent and end that, or we're sunk.

As a side note, I find it both amusing and offensive that King doesn't get that what he did demonstrates his ignorance and lack of education. More offensive than amusing, actually, the longer I think about it.

I don't have much more for you right now, but at least this gives enough substance so we can get a discussion started.