From the New Orleans Advocate's Stephanie Grace:
This is what I remember about the first time I met Steve Scalise nearly 20 years ago: He told me he was like David Duke without the baggage.
I was a new reporter covering Jefferson Parish, and Scalise, now the majority whip in the U.S. House of Representatives, was just starting out in the Louisiana Legislature (I’m going from memory, but the exchange obviously stuck with me). It would be several years before I would fully decode just what he meant by the sentiment.
I don't wish to be unkind, but, Stephanie, several years?
If I ever met an Italian-American pol who told me he was like Benito Mussolini without the baggage, I do believe even my newly sprouted journalistic antennae would stiffen on the spot. That's not to say my instant "decoding" would be accurate, just that a few dozen follow-up questions would, uh, seem in order. Was the politician joking? Was that his weird sense of humor? Was Mussolini, in his eyes, actually a hail fellow well met who only got carried away, rather impolitically? That sort of thing.
Incidentally, Speaker Boehner, as of yesterday, insisted that Steve Scalise "has my full confidence as our whip." Too bad Boehner was lying. My guess is that Scalise's crimson parachute is already packed.