What happens mix an extremist GOP congressman with a famed historian who was friends with Hunter Thompson? This:
Douglas Brinkley is an acclaimed historian, his recent works ranging from an account (“The Great Deluge”) of Hurricane Katrina to a biography (“The Wilderness Warrior”) of Theodore Roosevelt.
Douglas Brinkley. That’s Dr. Brinkley to you, asshole.
The Rice University professor is also a man unwilling to be intimidated by a blustering congressman.
Brinkley went before the House Natural Resources Committee on Friday to advocate national monument status for mountains, tundra, rivers and coasts of Alaska’s vast Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.
He incurred the wrath of Alaska’s Congressman-for-life Don Young, who has fought nearly 40 years to cut down his state’s national forests, build open pit mines and drill for oil in the Arctic Refuge.
Young referred to Brinkley as “Dr. Rice” and sneered that his testimony was “garbage.” (Known for outbursts, the congressman once brandished a walrus penis at the director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.)
“It’s Dr. Brinkley, Rice is a university, and I know you went to Yuba Community College and couldn’t graduate . . .” Brinkley shot back.
A fiery Young then interrupted Brinkley, saying: “‘I’ll call you anything I want to call you when you sit in that (witness) chair. You just be quiet.”
Brinkley gets extra points for being hot. Don Young, not so much.
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