"Obstreperous" sounded too acdemic, and was therefore suspect as a liberal word.

“What I tried to explain to them was, it didn’t have anything to do with your voting record, a scorecard, your work across the street or anything else. It had to do with your ability to work within the system and to try to work. And to be, I guess, constructive in things. And I said, ‘I guess you could say it was an asshole factor,’” Westmoreland said. “Now I wasn’t calling any member in particular an asshole, I was just trying to describe an environment where some people that you’re trying to work with, they just don’t want to work within the system.”

Georgia Congressman Lynn Westmoreland, explaining to his House Republican colleagues about the new criteria the leadership used for booting some of them from their committee in the new Congress.

No word yet from fellow Georgia Congressman Paul Broun, who has legislated on asshole issues in the past.