The longest-serving congressman in history, Rep. John Dingell, has hit out at President Barack Obama for his inexperience and meteoric rise to the top.
“He had the smallest Rolodex ever when he hit town” in 2005, the Michigan Democrat said Thursday on MSNBC’s "Daily Rundown" program.
"He moved so fast he never had any chance to build scar tissue, to learn politics, to be hurt. Because you got to be hurt in this business, so that you’ll toughen and so that you’ll learn. ... He’s had to kind of fight his way up fast without the experience."
The former chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee also took a dig at Obama over the quality of his advisers.
"I don't think that he's had the kind of eclectic advisers that Truman had or that Roosevelt had or that Johnson had, and I don't think he’s had the experience that those people had," the congressman said.
On Friday, Dingell, 86, passed the late West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd for the title of longest-tenured member of Congress. It marked his 20,997th day -- more than 57 years -- in office.
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