Name That Party: Capsizing Island Edition

April 2nd, 2010 11:57 AM

Yesterday, Newsweek's The Gaggle blog shared with its readers video of Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., in a congressional hearing expressing his concern that expanding the U.S. military presence on Guam might cause the island to tip over:

My fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize.

Yet in the caption beneath the video embed, Newsweek failed to mention the party affiliation of the congressman:

—Rep. Hank Johnson, during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on a budget request to relocate naval personnel to the island of Guam. Guam is 212 square miles with a population of 175,877 (2008 estimate). Later asked to clarify the remark, a spokesman for Johnson said he meant that population increases could lead to a "tipping point" destructive to the island's overtaxed ecosystem.