David Obey and Maxine Waters

David Obey and Maxine Waters lost control during a floor fight over an earmark.

Obey and Waters out of control?

I'm shocked!

From The Hill:

Two Democrats got into a verbal altercation — and according to one a physical one — on the floor of the House on Thursday night over an appropriations earmark one was seeking.

After the House floor had largely cleared following a series of votes, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) split apart from a heated conversation and began yelling at one another.

“You’re out of line,” Waters shot while walking down toward the well.

“You’re out of line,” Obey shot back before turning and walking away.

But then Obey stopped, turned back toward Waters, and shouted: “I’m not going to approve that earmark!”

Obey turned away, but Waters went to go huddle with members of the Congressional Black Caucus. She could be over heard telling them: “He touched me first.”

Waters was escorted by her colleagues into the cloakroom.

Obey then conversed for a few minutes with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). Hoyer's office said the two did not discuss the incident but instead talked only about the appropriations process. Obey had been speaking with Hoyer and leadership staff for most of the vote series prior to his encounter with Waters.

Obey then exited the chamber.

But Waters soon returned briefly, again telling her colleagues: “He touched me.”

Waters then disappeared into the cloakroom.

Waters and Obey have had an ongoing dispute about an earmark for a public school employment training center in Los Angeles that was named after Waters when she was a state representative.

Obey rejected that earmark as violating policies against so-called “monuments to me.” Waters revised her request to go to the school district’s whole adult employment training program, so the district could decide whether the money would go to the school named after Waters.

Thursday was the committee markup of the spending bill that would include the earmark, and Obey let it be known that the earmark would be denied. She approached him and complained.

A Waters aide said that Obey had pushed her.

Here's more on the smackdown, from Politico:

Witnesses, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it appeared that Waters pushed or shoved Obey.

The pair were seen shouting at each other and had to be separated by members -- who were gathered on the floor casting final votes before heading off to a party at the White House.

Waters, according a Democratic staffer familiar with the situation, approached Obey to ask him to fund one of her longstanding earmarks, the Maxine Waters Employment Preparation Center.

Obey -- who irked Waters a few weeks back by banning "Monuments to me" funding projects named after the politicians that earmark them -- told her no, emphatically enough to be heard across the chamber.

"I'm not going to approve that earmark!" Obey shouted.

The two veteran Democrats -- each pugnacious and 71 years old -- began shouting, with the L.A. area-Congresswoman following Obey around the chamber, reportedly suggesting he channel the vocational money through a local school district.

At some point, they collided, witnesses say, with one Obey ally claiming the lean Waters "tried to shove" the stout Obey.

I wish I could say that it's difficult to imagine Obey and Waters behaving like children, but I can't.

What an embarrassment!