As the immigration reform debate heats up in Washington, liberals seem to think that they have a free rein to say whatever they want against people who are skeptical of the proposals on the table. That’s exactly what happened on this afternoon’s broadcast of Now with Alex Wagner, with MSNBC contributor and former Democratic National Committee communications director Karen Finney charging that the “crazy crackers on the right” would doom the GOP in this immigration debate.
Yes, Finney used a derogatory, racist term for white people in a segment in which Republicans were chided for allegedly dehumanizing Hispanics with terms like "illegal immigrant" and "anchor babies." Of course, Finney, a board member of abortion lobby group NARAL Pro-Choice America knows a thing or two about dehumanizing innocents.
KAREN FINNEY: As in 2005- 06, the death knell for Republicans is the tone of this conversation. They absolutely – We had evangelical Latinos wanting to meet with Howard Dean at the DNC. I'm just saying, that's a shift, right?
ALEX WAGNER: Which is now the beginning to a bad joke.
(crosstalk)
FINNEY: And point being –we saw in droves, you know, the Latino community moving over to the Democratic Party largely because of the tone. You have even Republicans in the Republican Party who are Latino just disgusted with the tone. So, these guys have to be very, very careful. The other thing that these guys know is that those, you know, crazy crackers on the right, like if they start with their very hateful language, that is going to kill them in the same way that they learned at their little retreat that let's not talk about rape.
Finney tried to explain herself via Twitter, and apologized saying it wasn't racial because cracker and crack pot are the same thing. Sure, whatever you say Finney.
(H/T Noah Rothman at Mediaite)
