Republican Joe Walsh concedes that President Barack Obama a “historical figure,” but claims he was only elected because he is African-American. Walsh’s comments are part of a pattern on controversial behavior when it comes to the president. In the past he has called Obama “idiotic” and he boycotted a jobs speech by the president to a joint session of Congress. Huffington Post reports:

U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) made a comment already familiar to followers of the Tea Party favorite over the weekend: that President Obama is a “historic figure” who was only elected because he is African-American.

Walsh made his latest iteration of the comment Sunday during a town hall event in Wheeling, Ill., Think Progress reports.

“He was a historic figure. He’s our first African-American president. The country voted for him because of that. It made us feel good about [our]self.” Walsh said, according to Think Progress. “I’ve said it before, it helped that John McCain was about 142 years old. It helped that the economy was tanking. A lot of these things helped. But he never would have gotten there without his historic nature.”

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