The Democratic Party cheerleaders over at MSNBC just can’t get enough of Republican slip-ups. Whenever any Republican experiences a lapse in judgment and utters an offensive comment, you can bet the left-wing Lean Forward network will be all over the case. They will use that one person’s comment as an indictment of the whole GOP, regardless of whether the comment was made by a U.S. congressman or a county party chairman from Illinois, and regardless of how admirably and swiftly party officials move to remedy the situation.
Enter Jim Allen, GOP chairman of Montgomery County, Illinois. Allen wrote a despicable email attacking Erika Harold, a biracial former Miss America who is running for the Republican nomination for Illinois’ 13th congressional district. The email was horribly racist, tinged with sexism, and deserved to be condemned. And that’s exactly what Republicans did.
Dick Harpootlian
What is it with state Democratic Party chairpersons these days?
South Carolina Chairman Dick Harpootlian, whose term just recently ended, has hurled repeated tasteless insults at Palmetto State Governor Nikki Haley, who is of Indian heritage. His final parting shot: Haley needs to be sent "back to wherever the hell she came from." Louisiana's Democratic Party chairwoman joined in the "fun" earlier this week on the floor of the state's Senate (HT Campaign Spot; bolds are mine):
At the Daily Beast on Sunday, liberal Peter Beinart called on Democrats and liberals to "strongly denounce" former South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian's insult campaign against Palmetto State Governor Nikki Haley, or else "Democratic Party bigotry is likely to get worse."
It's too early to test Beinart's long-term prediction (such bigotry is bad enough already), but the denunciations he desires are nowhere to be found, even as Harpootlian has doubled and tripled down on his original wish to see Haley sent “back to wherever the hell she came from.” Meanwhile, the establishment press has virtually ignored Harpootlian's unhinged harangues.
On Election Day in South Carolina, as Republican Mark Sanford seeks to regain his old congressional seat, Mika Brzezinski did her best to stop Joe Scarborough from mentioning an ugly slur that the Chairman of the state's Democratic party had made against Republican Governor Nikki Haley.
Former South Carolina Democratic Chairman Dick Harpootlian was caught in controversy this week as he pledged to send Haley—daughter of Indian immigrants—"back to wherever the hell she came from.” According to the Morning Joe panel, Harpootlian has apologized for that remark. But Harpootlian has never apologized for his 2012 remark, comparing Haley with Adolf Hitler's mistress Eva Braun. When Scarborough began to cite that slur, Mika sought to silence him. Brzezinski actually resorted to the schoolkid technique of repeating "bah, bah, bah, bah" in order to drown Scarborough out, adding "we don't need to repeat it." View the video after the jump.
It's not often that yours truly visits Huffington Post. One of those rare occasions occurred early today as I was preparing the post (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog) about South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian relishing the idea that his party's candidate for Palmetto State Governor in 2014 might send current Republican Governor Nikki Haley "back to wherever the hell she came from."
In writing about Harpootlian's response to the controversy over his insensitive and arguably racist and nativist remark, HuffPo's Alana Horowitz, who serves as its Front Page Editor, wrote that Haley "is no stranger to scrutiny over her ethnic and religious background." To what sort of "scrutiny" did Horowitz refer involving Haley's "ethnic and religious background"? See after the jump:
The latest insensitive and arguably racist public utterance coming from the supposed party of tolerance and compassion comes from a Democrat in South Carolina. But not just any Democrat. This one is Dick Harpootlian, the Chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party. Harpootlian has a history of making outrageously offensive public remarks about South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, yet he remained as party chairman until (according to Politico) his term ended on Saturday.
Mediaite, Politico, and almost no one else in the establishment press has reported that Harpootlian, speaking at a Jefferson-Jackson dinner Friday night just before Vice President Joe Biden appeared, said while introducing South Carolina gubernatorial candidate Vincent Sheheen (as carried at Mediaite; HT Instapundit): "In about 18 months from now,” he said, “hopefully he’ll have sent Nikki Haley back to wherever the hell she came from."
For the second day in a row, an MSNBC anchor raised a liberal Democrat's claim that South Carolina's new voter ID law would be "electoral genocide" that disenfranchises thousands of black voters in the Palmetto State.
Daytime anchor Thomas Roberts made note of the alarmist statement by South Carolina Democratic Party chairman Dick Harpootlian in an interview about the photo ID law in the 11 a.m. Eastern hour with Tulane professor and Nation magazine contributor Melissa Harris-Perry.
Neither Roberts nor Harris-Perry objected to the Harpootlian's rhetoric, although in a tweet a short time later Harris-Perry conceded that "genocide is too strong a term." [video follows page break]
MSNBC's scurrilous charges of racism against the GOP continued yesterday as Hardball host Chris Matthews tag-teamed with South Carolina Democratic Party chairman Dick Harpootlian and Judith Browne-Dianis of The Advancement Project to insist to viewers that a newly-enacted voter ID law will prevent thousands of blacks from voting in the Palmetto State. The law is currently under review by the U.S. Department of Justice.
As is standard operating procedure for Hardball, no defender of the South Carolina law was featured during the October 19 program's segment -- entitled "Voting Wrongs" -- to balance out the discussion.