In yet another offensive statement, for which he will no doubt refuse to repudiate, former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo charged today that U.S. Supreme Court Justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor is a racist.
Crooks and Liars.com supplies the jaw-dropping video of Tancredo’s remarks on MSNBC’s “The Ed Show”:
Here’s the transcript:
Schultz: If there’s no red flag out there, if there’s no glaring issue …
Tancredo: scoffs
Schultz: … wouldn’t it be political suicide to challenge a Hispanic woman — which is part of the fastest growing demographic politically in this country? What would be your strategy to make sure that she doesn’t get on the court?
Tancredo: If, in fact, there was nothing to challenge her on I would suggest that they don’t challenge her on anything. Unfortunately, for her and fortunately for us, there are plenty of things that we haven’t talked about already that you keep ignoring. [Tancredo refers to an earlier segment where he used discredited GOP talking points alleging that Sotomayor claimed that Latina judges are better than their white male counterparts.]
I’m telling you she appears to be a racist. She said things that are racist in any other context. That’s exactly how we would portray it and there’s no one who would get on the Supreme Court saying a thing like that except for a Hispanic woman and you’re going to say it doesn’t matter. Well, man. Where are you coming from? How can you possibly say that?
There’s plenty of stuff.
Schultz: Bill Press, Bill, I gotta ask you, is she going to get special protection in the public arena because she’s a woman and Hispanic. What about that?
Press: No, she’s not going to get any special protection.
Tancredo: [Laughs] Oh, jeez.
Press: She’s going to be examined as a candidate for the Supreme Court, Ed. One thing I think we’ve got to lay on the table as Tom seems to ignore is, right, all the years that as a district attorney, as a corporate attorney, as a trial judge and then as an appellate court judge she brings to the court — listen to this — more judicial experience than any member of the court now sitting on the Supreme Court had when they were nominated.
I mean, she is extremely well qualified.
Tancredo: You can still be a racist and have all of those things in your background. You can be a racist and have all of that stuff in your background. One does not preclude the other.
Schultz: Alright, Mike Allen as a journalist, quickly would you check out to see if she had some racist comments?
Allen: No.
Schultz: Okay, that pretty much says it. Gentlemen, good to have you with us.
Tancredo: You won’t do it? You won’t check it out? There you go.
Press: No. She’s not a racist. She’s not a racist, Tom.
Tancredo: They won’t even check it out.
Read the Colorado Independent archives for the low-lights of Tancredo’s antics, as a member of Congress, GOP presidential candidate and now private citizen, over the last three years — including statements about bombing Mecca, calling Miami a Third World city, singing the praises of torturing terrorists, carousing with eugenics proponents or singing Dixie in front of a Confederate flag.
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