Patterico:
Democrats?? Doing race-based attacks on Republicans?!?!
Ab-solutely (via Hot Air):
Sen. Ted Cruz says some of the attacks on fellow Republican Sen. Marco Rubio by Democrats are motivated by race. Cruz said today the fact that Rubio is a Republican Latino poses a threat to political adversaries. “I think Democrats and the media are afraid of Marco Rubio because he is a smart, intelligent, conservative Hispanic. And they are looking for any excuse they can to attack him, because that threatens them,” Cruz told reporters during a tour of a Texas gun manufacturing plant north of Austin. “Look, he took a drink of water in a speech. And it dominated the news for days with one network saying it was a career ender.”
Cruz said the criticism of Rubio’s GOP response following last week’s State of the Union was about more than his being a promising young Republican. “It’s not just a promising Republican. I think the Democrats view Marco Rubio as a particular threat because of his background, his life story. I think it they believe it is in their interest to inflict as much damage as possible and blow things wildly out of proportion.”
Cruz is right. And here’s how I know that.
The first year I blogged, 2003, I noted a Wall Street Journal expose of Democrat strategy memos from the time when Democrats were in charge of the Senate Judiciary Committee (as they are again). The link to the WSJpiece is now broken, but you’re in luck, because I quoted the most relevant memo — and the link to my post still works. Here is a quote from a staffer to Dick “Dick” Durbin regarding a scheduled meeting with liberal interest groups. Note well, please, how they refer to Miguel Estrada:
The groups singled out three–Jeffrey Sutton (6th Circuit); Priscilla Owen (5th Circuit); and Caroline [sic] Kuhl (9th Circuit)–as a potential nominee for a contentious hearing early next year, with a [sic] eye to voting him or her down in Committee. They also identified Miguel Estrada (D.C. Circuit) as especially dangerous, because he has a minimal paper trail, he is Latino, and the White House seems to be grooming him for a Supreme Court appointment. They want to hold Estrada off as long as possible.
He’s dangerous, “Dick” Durbin was told, because he is Latino.
