By The Huffington Post News Editors
For the first time in seven years, progressive activists who generally spend their energy targeting conservative Democrats reached out to a Republican House member and invited him to chat with their liberal community. Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), a war critic and thorn in the side of the GOP leadership, accepted the invitation and engaged the progressives in a mostly friendly back and forth on Monday.
The online interview was announced at DownWithTyranny and hosted by Howie Klein at Blue America.
In 2011, Jones told The Huffington Post that if House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) didn’t reinstitute a moment of silence for troops who had died under Nancy Pelosi‘s watch, he would embarrass the speaker by introducing a resolution calling for it. The article led to a confrontation on the House floor between Jones and Boehner’s then-chief of staff Barry Jackson, according to Robert Draper’s Do Not Ask What Good We Do.