This week's C-SPAN double-take award goes to Rep. Jim Oberstar.
Speaking on the House floor last night, the congressman briefly broke into the tongue of his Slovenian ancestors during a speech to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia.
I'm not going to attempt to write down what he said in Slovene (see the video below), but Oberstar offered a translation, "What I said simply was thank you. And I'm Slovene, you're Slovak, and we're all together in the spirit of the Slovak peoples yearning for freedom after conquest by foreign powers, domination by other governments, subjection to cultures and language of other peoples."
Oberstar spokester John Schadl said the congressman is Slovenian (like many others from his district). " Slovenian was spoken around the house and in the community when he was growing up on the Iron Range, he can speak it pretty well, but he is not truly fluent in it," Schadl said.
Fun dejstvo: Amy Klobuchar je slovenska kot tudi.
