everybody has stuff they believe at what you might call the limbic level, completely pre-rational stuff that we bend all our other modes of thought around to accommodate. Hopefully the stuff you believe at that level doesn't make you a dangerous neighbor or citizen, but sometimes it does.
OTOH, though, Bowers wasn't born yesterday, he's an experienced pol despite the kind of babe in the woods image he projected at the hearing. Just because he says that doesn't mean it's true. He has his own political agenda in his state to manage. And he may believe praising Caesar while wielding the dagger only makes the blow more effective.