Tancredo Accuses Senators McCain and Martinez of Complicity in KKK Activities; Will They Fight Back?
Earlier today, Representative Tom Tancredo, a noted anti-immigrant extremist, went on television and denounced Sonia Sotomayor for her association with the National Council of La Raza. NCLR is a Latino advocacy group akin to the NAACP. But to Tancredo it’s the equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan, a violent racist terrorist organization:
TANCREDO: If you belong to an organization called La Raza, in this case, which is, from my point of view anyway, nothing more than a Latino — it’s a counterpart — a Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses. If you belong to something like that in a way that’s going to convince me and a lot of other people that it’s got nothing to do with race. Even though the logo of La Raza is “All for the race. Nothing for the rest.” What does that tell you?
SANCHEZ: Alright. We’re not talking about — we’re not talking about La Raza –
TANCREDO: She’s a member! She’s a member of La Raza!
Check out the video:
Now as Dave Meyer points out, this is not just a vile slur on Sotomayor and the NCLR, it’s a serious slur on Senator John McCain (R-AZ) who delivered the keynote at NCLR’s 2004 conference and also addressed the group in 2008. Meanwhile, Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) accepted an award from NCLR earlier this year.
The question arises as to whether McCain and Martinez are going to stand for this. Will they take on the maniacs in their own party who are slandering them, or will they decide to just lay low and hope that nobody notices what’s going on. I know that if someone accused me of having delivered the keynote address at a Klan rally, I’d be mad as hell. Is McCain?
64 Responses to “Tancredo Accuses Senators McCain and Martinez of Complicity in KKK Activities; Will They Fight Back?”
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May 28th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
“without the hoods and nooses”
What a fucking idiot….
May 28th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Awesome.
I’m starting to think Barack Obama picked Sotomayor because he foresaw the epidemic of foot-shooting it would bring about on the right.
May 28th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
It’s amazing that someone like John McCain who panders to both La Raza and ACORN isn’t considered to be too dangerously liberal for the Democratic party.
May 28th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
@Cryptic Ned: Nice Freudian slip
May 28th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Re Matthew’s comment “But to Tancredo it’s the equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan, a violent racist terrorist organization:”
————-
Actually, they’re a pack of pussies.
The Aryan Brotherhood, on the other hand, are mean motherfuckers.
May 28th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
I’m starting to think Barack Obama picked Sotomayor because he foresaw the epidemic of foot-shooting it would bring about on the right.
It’s out of the realm of possibility that Obama, Axerod, and company didn’t know there was potential political gold in nominating Judge Sotomayor. That said, I’m more impressed the more I read about her, so I’m confident Obama thought “country first” and “politics second.” If you can do the right thing by the country and weaken the Flat Earther Heroic Randian Confederate Party, all the better. Come to think of it, weakening the Flat Earther Heroic Randian Confederate Party is doing the right thing by the country.
May 28th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
It’s also worth pointing out that “Por la raza todo, fuera la raza nada” is the slogan not of La Raza, but of MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán), a far more radical and utterly unrelated group. This would be like taking Black Panther slogans and attributing them to the NAACP in an effort to discredit Julian Bond.
But it’s cool, because they’re all Mexicans, right? Pretty much the same anyway. It’s not like Tancredo was lying in principal, only in fact.
May 28th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Really, though, Obama picked her for the same reason he picked Tim Geithner, Shaun Donovan, Rahm Emmanuel, and Arne Duncan: because they remind him of himself.
Youngish (as high-level public officials go), not from old money, ethnic, uber-bright, worked their way up, a bit of a prickly personality.
Beautiful people, haven’t you heard?
The joke’s on you, it’s Revenge of the Nerds.
May 28th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
When it comes to keeping what small voting constituency they have, the rightwing will allow anything to be said about anybody as long as it serves to keep their dwindling base happy. Think tea baggers, the klan, aryan brotherhood, border vigilantes, gun nuts, etc as the base. There is nothing that is over the top with the rightwing base anymore.
May 28th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
OMG! I bet AssForAHeadDotCon squealed continuously for 40 minutes, then after changing his diapers prepared to head over hear and update us on all the important notes he added to his blog about Mexicans taking over the US!
May 28th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
I think it’s pretty obvious Tancredo is anti-Catholic.
May 28th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
It’s pronounced Tanker-Dough, because Italianate pronunciations are un-American.
May 28th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
Do the wops get to criticize the spics? Somebody get me a program– I never can keep these things straight.
May 28th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
@ Don, what kind of talk is that?
May 28th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Really? You’ll be mad as hell? I didn’t think you to be the kind of person who cares much when some maniac is accusing them of something that’s not true or that’s insulting. You’re not a politician – what do you care?
May 28th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
Really, though. Tancredo is the Republican Kucinich. Fringe to the point of irrelevance. But as far as I know Kucinch isn’t a racist SOB. So I take the point, sort-of.
May 28th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Tancredo is GOLD. Misattributed slogans, an outfit and demeanor that help him come off like a sleazy woman-hater on an episide of Magnum PI or something, and the delightful assertion that La Raza is like the KKK without the nooses. Also in: Sotormayor is like real chocolate without the cocoa beans, paint without the pigment, and Tom Tancredo without that horsehit aroma.
May 28th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
NCLR already spent considerable time responding to these critics, and even set out to defend MEChA in the process. You can read “NCLR Answers Critics” here. It’s a shame that Tancredo has built a career with these type of insanity.
May 28th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Now let’s see: McCain has to run in 2010 and he can’t win without the right wing or a good chunk of the Hispanic vote. So, he’ll just duck and cover heroically. I’ll bet that some Arizona Democrats are smirking and waiting. Wheee!
May 28th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
This would be a much stronger point if it weren’t widely acknowledged that Martinez and McCain are sell-out RINOs. Both of them are more than willing to kowtow to their Latin masters in exchange for money and SEIU brutes to help them get elected.
May 28th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
RE Centro Evangelico at 14: “@ Don, what kind of talk is that?”
———–
Sorry. I was joking — mocking Tancredo for engaging in behavior that some WASPs applied against Italian Americans in decades past.
May 28th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
As a Democrat, I’d be happy to help with funds to make Tanker-Dough the standard bearer for the Republican Party and to help you get rid of all those awful RINO’s dependent on the Latin beasties and union thugs!
May 28th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
I’m not actually aware of McCain and Martinez even being slightly friendly to unions. Unions are pretty willing to work with Republicans when they can maneuver for their own advantage (look at 1199 in NY, for instance), but that’s mostly in places where they already have a strong presence.
Is this an inaccurate impression of mine?
May 28th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that when people talk about ‘La Raza’, they’re using the term “race” in a cultural sense, not a biological one. The whole national myth of Mexico is that they are a biracial nation, born of the wonderful fusion of Amerindian and Iberian peoples. In such a context, the idea of being a racist in the American, Steve Sailor sense is meaningless. “All for the race” is a call to defend Mexican culture and national identity, not a call to racial supremacy in the sense in which we are accustomed to use the word.
You can call La Raza or even MeChA “culturist” if you like, and in that sense there are few of us that aren’t culturist to some extent, but there’s nothing _racist_ about them at all. Anyone who compares them to a bunch of f*cking Klansmen is a liar.
May 28th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Latin Masters?
Zippy chance a Diane Wood nomination would have produced this much hilarity. Well done, Barry.
May 28th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
1) I strongly disagree with La Raza’s advocacy for more immigration — because I think we have a duty to pull millions of our fellow countrymen –Including Hispanic Americans — out of poverty and unemployment before we accept more outsiders.
I also think there is a limit to how many people our land can support.
2) But that is a political dispute — not a question of loyalty to the country. La Raza has explicitly disavowed many of the things of which Tancredo is accusing them. In response to similar claims a Congressman named Norwood? made a year or so ago. See http://www.nclr.org/section/reconquista/
May 28th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
Just a guess, but McCain probably thinks he has bigger fights to fight than pointing out what an idiot Tom Tancredo is.
May 28th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
This would be a much stronger point if it weren’t widely acknowledged that Martinez and McCain are sell-out RINOs. Both of them are more than willing to kowtow to their Latin masters in exchange for money and SEIU brutes to help them get elected.
So, presumably, you fully support Martinez and McCain switching over to their real party, so that there are no more sell-out RINOs in your ranks. That is what you meant, right?
May 28th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
I am a proud member of NYLR. New York La Raza. We chant “New York State uber alles!”
We are a racist organization but it is unclear who we consider the undermensch. All the world’s peoples and religions are represented within our group. We constantly bicker because we have no one to hate.
Except for southern Senators. On that subject we find many points of agreement.
May 28th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Didn’t Martinez write the memo that outlined the GOP Congressional strategy on Schiavo? He let Rove run his Republican primary campaign for the Senate from DC. The only reason he ran then instead of for governor later was to make Bush and Rove happy.
May 28th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
It always makes me wonder when I read such criticisms: is KKK such a bad thing? I mean, for Tancredo?
Similarly, some wingnut goons accuse liberals of being fascist. But why is fascism bad, for THEM? Aha: because some fascists were emphatically supporting public transit and vegetarianism, even though they did some good stuff, like torture (and were cited to counter the claims that torture is ineffective; you just have to do it right, rather than copy some lame methods of North Koreans).
May 28th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
I guess Matt stopped the end of the day links posts?
May 28th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
Way to accept the insane premise, Rick Sanchez. Idiot.
May 28th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Usually I believe in not feeding the trolls, and I’m disappointed at how many commenters have engaged them. But I’d simply like to point out that this is exactly how Republicans to the left of Tancredo are going to be attacked.
May 28th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Please. Precious few conservatives will be outraged on McCain’s part. He is persona non grata.
May 28th, 2009 at 11:56 pm
Seriously, La Raza is kind of sketchy on jews. I don’t think it’s any big ideological thing – It’s commonplace for concentrated ethnicities to resent the concentrated ethnicities who lived in the neighborhoods before they moved in, because even after those people move on, they tend to still own the local businesses and apartment buildings, and appear like absentee landlords. And before East LA – where La Raza grew up – was mexican, it was jewish.
May 29th, 2009 at 12:05 am
TANCREDO: She’s a member! She’s a member of La Raza!
There’s a nice show tune here, waiting to be a made.
Tancredo: She’s a member! She’s a member…. of! Laaa RaaaaaazzzzzzAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Greek chorus: OH no! La Raza?!
Tancredo: LAAAAA RAAAAAZZZZZZZZZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Chorus (gasps): WHAT’LL SHE DO?
Tandredo: She’ll take your job!
Chorus: She’ll take our job?!
Tandredo: She’ll take your house!
Chorus: She’ll take our HOUSE?!
Tancredo: She’ll take your card!
Chorus: Take our plastic?!
Tancredo: She’ll take your boat!
Chorus: Not the boat!!
Tancredo: LAAAAAA RAAAAAAAAZZZZZZZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
Chorus: Oh oh no!
Tancredo: She’ll steal your cars!
Chorus: She’s got the keys?!
Tancredo: She’ll steal your radio!
Chorus: It’s in the car!
Tancredo: Fairness doctrine!
Chorus: No, it’s not!
Tancredo: Goodbye Rush!
Chorus: What about the cars?!
Tancredo: LLLAAAAAAAAAAAA RRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Chorus: She’s really mean!
Tancredo: She’ll take your hot dogs! No more white bread!
Chorus: Huh huh WHAT?!
Tancredo: Only that brown stuff!
Chorus: What’s it’s called?!
Tancredo: Something Spanish!
Chorus: Spanish WHAT?!
Tancredo: I’m goddamn white!
Chorus: Kinda tacky!
Tancredo: LLLAAAAAAAAAAAAA RRRAAAAAZZZZZZZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Chorus: No more house?!
Tancredo: No more English!
Chorus: Blink blink blink!
Tancredo: She’ll kill your dog!
Chorus: He’s got no home!
Tancredo: No more cute white girls!
Chorus: No more plastic?!
Tancredo: Bye bye vote!
Chorus: Where’s the boat?!
Tancredo: LLLAAAAAAAAAAAAA RRRAAAAAZZZZZZZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Chorus: It’s really weird!
Tancredo: Goodbye daughters!
Chorus: Where’d they go?!
Tancredo: Off to camps!
Chorus: Camping trips?!
Tancredo: Lesbian camping trips!
Chorus: You’re kinda strange.
Tancredo: No more VOTE!
Chorus: Where’d it go?
Tancredo: LLLAAAAAAAAAAAAA RRRAAAAAZZZZZZZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Chorus: Where’s my vote?
Tancredo: ACORN got it!
Chorus: My stuff’s still here.
Tancredo: She’ll steal your hubcaps!
Chorus: From over there?!
Tancredo: She’s on your couch!
Chorus: My car’s stull here!
Tancredo: MANDATORY SALSA!
Chorus: You’re really weird!
Tancredo: LLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAA RRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAZZZZZZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Hrmm. That works pretty good. I’m not going to mess with it anymore.
max
['All-singing, all-dancing Ted Tancredo doesn't have much range.']
May 29th, 2009 at 12:13 am
Those sissys will cower before the power of the BSD’s of conservatism.
May 29th, 2009 at 12:29 am
Good work, CNN, got Tancredo to mouth off w/o implicating yourselves too much for giving him the platform.
[Tancredo district voters: You not so much.]
P.S. Max, f’ing genius. Seriously. I can put you in touch with some B’way folks. Email me @ gmail.
May 29th, 2009 at 12:37 am
Well, Matt, that depends on whether McCain has any principles.
On a related note, a *principled* conservative/Republican could use this as a “Sister Souljah” moment, except, well, telling your base that it’s gone too far is the kind of thing that the media expects *Democrats* to do, but not *Republicans*.
Maybe McCain can split the difference and blame Obama for *making* Tancredo slur McCain as a
n*****Mexican-lover.May 29th, 2009 at 1:09 am
Now Cornyn is repudiating Rush & Newt (apparently both real names and both actual people, not parodies) for calling Sotomayor “racist”:
Clearly it’s time for TruRepublicans to oust that leftist traitor John Cornyn.
Meanwhile, the hourglass is turned and the sand begins to trickle down on Cornyn’s likely craven apology to Rush.
May 29th, 2009 at 1:32 am
He’s overstating it, but it clearly is a race based organisation which would be condemned if it were comprised of whites.
Why is the double standard acceptable? Shouldn’t a colourblind approach be taken?
May 29th, 2009 at 1:40 am
it clearly is a race based organisation which would be condemned if it were comprised of whites.
Like, say, the Republicans in Congress?
Seriously, though, I hope that Matt wakes up and sees an extended pro-lynching bigot eruption on the site with his name on it and thinks for a second about his priorities here. There’s no point having comments on a blog if he doesn’t give a shit about their content.
May 29th, 2009 at 1:49 am
it clearly is a race based organisation which would be condemned if it were comprised of whites.
Hear hear! I mean, who ever heard of an Irish, Scottish, Italian, Greek, Polish, Czech, Norwegian, or Swedish cultural organization?
May 29th, 2009 at 1:50 am
Seriously, what do these white people want, a parade?
May 29th, 2009 at 1:56 am
Pseudo, that would require Matt to actually bother to read his comments. For all I know, Matt sees the little thing that tell him 141 people responded to the previous thread and thinks, “Golly, 141 people wrote to say what a lovely fellow and wise thinker I am!”
May 29th, 2009 at 3:48 am
Without the hoods and nooses, waddaya got?
May 29th, 2009 at 4:00 am
There is an organization called NACWPETLGGGB that has existed for over 200 years. It stands for National Association for the Continuance of White People’s Exploiting, Theiving, Lying, Genocide, and General Godless Behavior.
It’s easy to join, the headquarters is the entire country.
May 29th, 2009 at 4:00 am
[...] to Judge Maria Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court, I wanted to point out Matt Yglesias’ post on Tom Tancredo equating La Raza with the KKK. TANCREDO: If you belong to an organization called La [...]
May 29th, 2009 at 6:42 am
Yes! Let’s have a Hey Look At Us White People parade! Everybody loves a parade. We’ll have it in midtown manhattan and tancredo can lead it, with Rush acting as our float.
May 29th, 2009 at 7:12 am
This is it, isn’t it?
‘How come they can have a group called the National Association for the Advancement of the Colored People and we can’t have nothin’ called lookin’ for the National Association for the Advancement of White People? Huh?
“And how come they can say n***er but we cain’t?”
May 29th, 2009 at 7:21 am
A “KKK without the hoods and nooses” would be like a Tom Tancredo without the bigotry and stupidity.
Like Dick Cheney telling saying he earned a Ph.D. except for doing the dissertation, it omits the essence of the thing entirely.
May 29th, 2009 at 8:14 am
Bracketing that LaRaza is just the Latino NAACP, the KKK without the hoods and nooses would just be a particularly bitter social club.
May 29th, 2009 at 8:29 am
A KKK without the hoods and nooses would just be a particularly bitter social club?
You mean, the Republican Party?
May 29th, 2009 at 8:34 am
Seriously, though, I hope that Matt wakes up and sees an extended pro-lynching bigot eruption on the site
What? Where? I agree Matt’s exceedingly light with the moderating hand, but I see nothing this bad here.
it clearly is a race based organisation which would be condemned if it were comprised of whites.
See Hector above @24, Josh.
May 29th, 2009 at 8:43 am
Ah, now I see — you’re talking about the previous thread with the pro-lynching bit.
May 29th, 2009 at 9:00 am
C’mon, now, they’re not “pro-lynching”, they keep saying they’re against lynching and vigilante justice.
They’re just more against many of the victims of the lynchings, ’cause here’s a 10 year old report about how a lot of white people are today killed by blacks and also ‘the Left’ made a bunch of wrong noises about the Jena 6 and the Duke lacrosse team charges, which means that maybe lynching wasn’t as bad as ‘the Left’ says.
See? It’s so simple, and surely this popular view will soon become common wisdom among Real Americans.
May 29th, 2009 at 9:17 am
Josh at #42,
Again, it’s a culture based organization, not a race based one. “Race” means something different in the Latin American context. A brotherhood of little Steve Sailers they are not.
It’s no more horrible than, say, a Polish-American or Armenian-American organization.
May 29th, 2009 at 9:51 am
I can’t help but wonder what the hell Mel Martinez (R-FL) is waiting for to come out and say something about this. It’s not as if he has to worry about reelection.
May 29th, 2009 at 10:01 am
[...] and comes up with a new reason why Republicans may not care about alienating Hispanic voters by having their members of congress compare NCLR to the Ku Klux Klan. He takes a look at what the 2008 electoral college would look like if we transferred half of John [...]
May 29th, 2009 at 10:06 am
No one will quake in their boots if that most over-whined of ethnic groups, the ‘Scots-Irish’, were to organize parades or scholarships.
May 29th, 2009 at 11:00 am
Matias, thanks for the link, very useful.
May 29th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Yes, they can say that all they want. His “strange fruit” reference gave the game away, though.
May 29th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Eric, thanks for the reminder, I was about to look that up. I used to have study hall at the CSUN MEChA room, and nobody asked for my Chicano card… which was good, since I’m as white as the King of Norway.
I think the other problem this brings up is the degree of cultural unfamiliarity. Getting worked up about “La Raza” in and of itself fits right in with getting worked up over people named “Jesus”… and whether you call ‘em “Gee-zus” or “Hey-soos”.