Shameful: Reid insults conservative Hispanics by questioning Rubio’s Hispanic creds

Fox News reports on disgusting remarks the Senate Minority Leader made about Senator Rubio in an interview he did with the Politico news outlet:

A conservative Hispanic group is coming to the defense of Republican Sen. Marco Rubio after Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid questioned the Cuban-American lawmaker’s commitment to “Hispanic issues” given his early opposition to an ambassadorial nominee who is Puerto Rican.

Reid made the remark in an interview with Politico. Reid criticized Rubio for initially opposing President Obama’s nomination of Mari Carmen Aponte for ambassador to El Salvador.

“In Nevada, this woman is seen by the Puerto Rican community, the Hispanic community, as really somebody who is an up-and-rising star. … I just think it’s a mistake for someone who is supposedly representing Hispanic issues to do what (Rubio) has done,” Reid said.

But Alfonso Aguilar, executive director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, called the criticism by Reid and others “appalling.”

“This blatant attempt at racial identity politics is offensive and condescending to all Latinos,” he said in a statement Thursday.

“It’s insulting for Reid and Obama’s minions to imply that all Latinos support a person’s nomination to federal office just because he or she is a fellow Latino. Many Latinos and Puerto Ricans opposed the nominations of Mari Carmen Aponte and (Supreme Court Justice) Sonia Sotomayor,” Aguilar said.

[…]

Rubio initially opposed Aponte’s nomination, but later relented to support her.

Reid, as I’m sure you’ve figured out by now, is using a similar tried and true but nonetheless despicable tactic of the left: Trying to shame GOP ‘minority’ politicos by suggesting their opposition to either legislation that would supposedly benefit “their people”, or political nominees who are from the “same race/national origin”, is a betrayal to “their kind.” Of course, this same rule does NOT apply when either the legislation was introduced by the GOP or the nominee is backed by the GOP because, well – as noted many times here, most recently yesterday – to the left, these Hispanic politicos do not represent “real minorities” and accordingly are not “really representative” of mainstream minorities across this country. So it’s ok to oppose their nominations or any legislation introduced by Republicans that might benefit them.

That’s how this whole stupid identity politics game works with the left. Think about it: Would Reid have said the same thing about Rubio “supposedly” representing Hispanic issues had Rubio opposed a conservative Puerto Rican nominee? Of course not, because Reid would have opposed the nominee, too, on ideological grounds – that and the fact that Democrats are 100% opposed to helping qualified minorities rise within the ranks of the GOP because they know that the more that happens, the more their stranglehold on the “minority” vote loosens, as I’ve written before.

Which is, incidentally, part of the reason Reid enjoys trying to put the heat on Rubio – particularly with the Hispanic community.

Because Reid and his party are so sickly obsessed with divisive identity-based political tactics that pit one group of Americans against the other (see Reid’s controversial August 2010 comments about Hispanics and the GOP here for more), they can’t fathom that some “minority” politicos out there (mostly on the GOP side) do NOT want to be known simply as the “Hispanic candidate” or the “female candidate” or the “black candidate” – they want to be known as the person who is representing all of the people in their district/state, not just a particular group, which means they will not automatically support nominees up for a vote based simply on their similar cultural backgrounds. Their considerations will almost always ideology-based and that alone, which is the way – in an ideal world – it should be.

Unless you’re a desperate Democrat, that is.

Comments are closed.