Republican “minority outreach” marches on towards a new era of post-racial America…
Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the House majority whip, acknowledged Monday that he spoke at a gathering hosted by white nationalist leaders while serving as a state representative in 2002, thrusting a racial controversy into House Republican ranks days before the party assumes control of both congressional chambers.
The 48-year-old Scalise, who ascended to the House GOP’s third-ranking post earlier this year, confirmed that he was a speaker at a convention of the European-American Unity and Rights Organization.
That organization, founded by famed white supremacist David Duke, has been called a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
But in a statement, Scalise’s spokesperson emphasized that the then-state lawmaker was unaware at the time of the group’s ideology and its association with racists and neo-Nazi activists.
“Throughout his career in public service, Mr. Scalise has spoken to hundreds of different groups with a broad range of viewpoints,” said Moira Bagley, Scalise’s spokesperson. “In every case, he was building support for his policies, not the other way around. In 2002, he made himself available to anyone who wanted to hear his proposal to eliminate slush funds that wasted millions of taxpayer dollars as well as his opposition to a proposed tax increase on middle-class families.”
She added, “He has never been affiliated with the abhorrent group in question. The hate-fueled ignorance and intolerance that group projects is in stark contradiction to what Mr. Scalise believes and practices as a father, a husband, and a devoted Catholic.”
Bonus points for being the one Republican politician in Louisiana who was “unaware” in 2002 of who David Duke was. Rand Paul should really pick this guy to be his veep, they’d make a great team. You know, like nitro and glycerin.
Super bonus points for Steve Scalise having 12 years of a political career going from speaker at a David Duke convention to the number 3 guy in the House of Representatives without anyone in the Village noticing. The whole “Republican Party as the Last Bastion Of Pure Whiteness(tm) thing” is a feature, not a bug, America.
Now would be a good time to blame the problems in America with race on Obama, I guess.
Amir Khalid
The organisation is called EURO? How clever.
Mustang Bobby
More like salt and peter.
c u n d gulag
“But in a statement, Scalise’s spokesperson emphasized that the then-state lawmaker was unaware at the time of the group’s ideology and its association with racists and neo-Nazi activists.”
Yes, I guess when he addressed them, he looked at those swastika’s and hooded robes and thought he was speaking to an order of Christian monks who didn’t know when to quit when drawing the cross that Christ was crucified on.
Give us a break.
We know you’re stupid, Congressman!
But not all of the rest of us are!!!!!
dp
Unaware? I call BS. In the Louisiana Legislature, Scalise represented a district adjacent to the one that was sequentially represented by David Duke and David Vitter.
Lee Rudolph
I swear, I had just cut the headline and lede in preparation for pasting them here when I arrived and found this.
Some things make me proud to be an American!!!
Paul (@princejvstin)
“Youthful indiscretion”?, perhaps
Couldn't Stand the Weather
It is unfuckingbelievable how often these idjits don’t know who their audience is. George Allen wishes he had this Bagley person’s gift of denial.
I cannot take these people. Let the lies, overreach, chaos and subsequent gridlock commence.
gorillagogo
Mention this to a conservative and the stock response is that Robert Byrd was in the Klan 80 years ago so democrats are the real racists
Southern Beale
Well see, he’s “spoken to hundreds of different groups with a broad range of viewpoints,” including the ones who want to exterminate the Jews and the ones who want to bring back Jim Crow and so really, it’s just another viewpoint in that vast marketplace of ideas, what is the issue?
/sarcasm
Mustang Bobby
@gorillagogo: And when you point out to them that Byrd apologized and made amends, they shrug and say apologies are for wimps.
MattF
I remember hearing about a phone conversation with someone in Louisiana in those days– the woman on the phone was the lone liberal in a winger family in Louisiana, so when the family realized that she was on the phone with one of her northern liberal pals, the family gathered around her and started chanting “Duke! Duke! Duke!”. Funny… but not. And no, it’s not credible that Scalise didn’t know what Duke was up to.
danielx
@Mustang Bobby:
And there never was anything called the Southern Strategy, either.
elmo
Why won’t Obama LEEEAAAAAD??
Baud
I can’t believe a liberal blog is mocking an organization committed to the promotion of civil rights in the European Union.
Violet
Gosh, I wonder if those “broad range of viewpoints” included shoshulists, Planned Parenthood, AFL-CIO. No? Why not? They didn’t want to hear about “his proposal to eliminate slush funds that wasted millions of taxpayer dollars as well as his opposition to a proposed tax increase on middle-class families.” ?? So unfair to them.
SatanicPanic
@Baud: probably just a bunch of glibertarians
ranchandsyrup
How dare the race obsessed libtard media dig this up and accurately report it? It’s all their fault. *soils diaper*
Violet
@ranchandsyrup: Well, the good news is, when Republicans go on Meet the Press and lie about it, Chuck Todd won’t say anything to them about their lies because he’s terrified that if he does they won’t come on his show again.
ranchandsyrup
@Violet: Heh indeedy. Chuck was twitter lecturing “partisans” on the twitters today.
MattF
@Violet: And, as you say, that’s the good news.
Baud
@ranchandsyrup:
Isn’t he afraid people will stop following him on Twitter if he’s too hard on them?
Caprice
David Duke had some plastic surgery to look more… pure. A chin implant, among other things. Might have had the nose shaved off a bit.
ranchandsyrup
@Baud: He was working hard to create the “there are crazy partisans on both sides that are equally bad but i’m a centrist and serious journamalist” impression. Which would work if you’ve never seen his show.
Chuck cares not for random twitter followers, favs or RTs. He lives for the pat on the head from his daddy gopers.
Brendan in NC
Uh-oh! Looks like Steve-O forgot this quote: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”
jonas
Well, at least you know how far the cause of white supremacy has fallen when they’re letting a
greasy popish wopCatholic named Scalise address their convention.Mike in dc
If Obama would just stop reminding them that they hate minorities, racism would just go away. Thanks, Obama!
Heliopause
Yeah, that could mean almost anything. Just a weekly bocce and canasta club that also happens to be interested in limited government, for instance.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
I love that the best defense he can come up with is “I’m a freakin’ moron.” If you’re that stupid, then you’re too stupid to be making policies that affect other people.
Baud
@ranchandsyrup:
I hate when reality interferes with messaging.
bemused
I’m pretty tired of hearing Republicans use the who-could-have-known phony excuse. Lousy liars but no worries when their base isn’t bothered.
Violet
@Baud: He’s never afraid to defend his own ineptitude. Plenty willing to bark while doing that.
I accidentally saw a few moments of MTP yesterday when I was rewinding the receiver to check the weather. Katy Tur was reporting on the missing Air Asia flight and she threw back to Chuckles and he could not have been less comfortable in the “anchor” role. He looked like a deer in the headlights saying something like, “That was Katy Tur in Singapore. Thank you Katy.” Incredibly uncomfortable to watch. Which I only did by accident but I quickly found the weather forecast I was looking for. Can’t stand him on MTP.
Roger Moore
Is there ever a wrong time to blame anything on Obama? I don’t think so!
CONGRATULATIONS!
I get the feeling this won’t be a problem for his “base”. In fact, I suspect he’ll probably be in the House the rest of his life.
Baud
@Violet:
He’s awful. FWIW, I happen to think most of his awfulness is subconscious. I think he probably does regard himself as a fair and hard-hitting reporter.
ranchandsyrup
@Baud: My precious narrative!
delk
It was part of the research he was doing before he authored a constitutional amendment to protect marriage.
Shakezula
I am going to GUESS he never unwittingly blundered into a PFLAG meeting.
Villago Delenda Est
@gorillagogo: Hence my usual tag line when dealing with beings of close to pure evil.
Wipe them out. All of them.
SatanicPanic
What does it say about all meetings he has speaking to that this one didn’t stick out in his mind as a bit different?
Villago Delenda Est
@jonas: Italian-Americans are now members of the club, which wasn’t true say 70 years ago…where they were only a few degrees of melanin short of being outright ni*CLANGS*.
Violet
@Baud: He wasn’t this horrible during the 2008 campaign. I remember when he and someone else–I think it might have been Brian Williams–interviewed McCain and Palin. As Todd and Williams left the interview venue, they were then interviewed by someone on air. Brian Williams did his best to make it sound like everything was just fine and that these were two normal people, but Chuck Todd let it slip that there was some tension between McCain and Palin (or something like that) and the look on his face was one of absolute disbelief that these two–or maybe it was just Palin–were allowed this close to the seat of power. He simply could not hide his disbelief, fear, and disgust that these two who clearly could not get along were running for the President and Vice President of the United States.
At that point he seemed like a real person, like a reporter who had just seen something shocking and was working to formulate the proper response. I held out hope that we’d hear more about it later. Bu we did not. And that Chuck Todd vanished into the toupeed toady we see today. Sad. Because at that point I think he had potential to be a real reporter. That Chuck Todd is gone.
Villago Delenda Est
@Violet: The day the broken, exsanguinated body of Chuckles the Toddler is found in a back alley (along with that of Bo-Bo Brooks) the universe will be a better place by an order of magnitude.
Villago Delenda Est
@Violet: Well, McCain had this absurd notion that he was the head of the ticket. If you were Sarah Palin, wouldn’t that cause your panties to be in a bunch?
The Village assimilates more aggressively than the Borg.
Baud
@Violet:
It may be that Palin was just that bad.
kindness
That excuse….isn’t that the same as saying:
‘I didn’t know the little boy you caught me in bed having sex with was 15. I was told he was 18’.
carolus
This should be a fairly easy scalp to collect.
As someone noted upthread it won’t cost Scalise his seat as his district probably likes the idea of their congresscritter playing footsie with David Duke. But whenever the GOP starts bloviating about ‘civil rights’–every Dem should take the opportunity to note the House Majority Whip is a fan of the David Duke crowd.
Let Scalise try to deny it. He’s either lying or stupid. Let him make the choice.
beltane
@Baud: Chuck Todd would have tolerated the evil that is Sarah Palin if only she had the right sort of breeding and upbringing. The Village may fawn over the mythical Real American but they become uncomfortable when they are ever in the same room as one. Imagine Sally Quinn being forced to entertain the Palin family? Such a horror must be prevented at all costs.
Baud
@kindness:
No. That excuse is plausible, even if legally irrelevant.
Baud
@beltane:
Right. Rubes are supposed to be rubes, not equals or superiors.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@beltane: That’s always been her problem. She was white trash in a way that the Village could only have dreamed Clinton was.
Well, that and she’s a fucking psychopath, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make.
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud: The Clintons drove the scum of the Village absolutely bonkers. David Broder was fucking apoplectic about their presence in his perfect little town.
srv
The last time the GOP won the White House without a Bush or Nixon on the ticket was: 1928
-wp
gogol's wife
@Roger Moore:
I just read the most ridiculous article in the NYTimes about those surly teenagers Malia and Sasha. Because they looked dazed getting off a 10-hour flight to Hawaii. This was the flimsy reed on which the authors hung a story about how hard it is to get teenagers into the spirit of a family Christmas vacation. God I hate the way they’ve treated this family.
As usual, they lumped in Rush Limbaugh’s foul attack on Chelsea Clinton with the Bush twins getting bad publicity for getting wasted in public.
bemused
People of the village media will meet the conditions required to get that very comfortable salary which pays for beautiful homes or big apartments, great schools for the kids and lovely lifestyles. I’m shocked when any of them do break from the script, rare as that is.
SamR
@c u n d gulag: Is it better or worse for Scalise that he’s basically saying he couldn’t tell White Supremacists apart from the typical right wing groups he speaks to? I can see it now “hey, I just gave them the standard fare about thugs in the cities, illegals swarming the borders, and how we can’t let the Mideast hold us hostage, and they ate it up.”
gogol's wife
@bemused:
This is almost word for word what my husband says when I complain about the media.
bemused
@gogol’s wife:
I thought Chuck wasn’t so bad, sometimes pretty good, in his early days in cable news. I was not really surprised when it didn’t last. All those opportunities, $$$, just dangling there to grab if you’re willing to do what you’re told.
Tree With Water
The GOP plots and unleashes wars for kicks and profit. That outfit doesn’t hire choir boys or June Cleavers, but people willing to do what they’re told (June took shit off no one). The man and the party have not only met in Scalise, but in the whole rotten lot of them– no exceptions.
Betty Cracker
@gogol’s wife: Seriously? I read it earlier and thought it was a total puff piece that was completely uncritical of the Obamas — just the usual “teens amirite?” crap. The thing about the kids looking unenthused about the vacay while coming off the plane was a quote from a Daily Mail headline. I don’t know what that rag had to say, but the NYT piece struck me as more gentle commiseration with anyone who is parenting teens than anything bad about the Obamas. What am I missing?
SiubhanDuinne
@srv:
Crikey! That kind of puts it in perspective!
gogol's wife
@Betty Cracker:
What was the point or the news value of the article? To me it was continuing the meme that they are surly and ill-mannered and don’t think much of their father — for which there is zero evidence.
ETA: Why would the Obamas need commiseration? I see no reason.
rikyrah
but this is who they are.
Anne Laurie
@rikyrah: Well, yeah. Scalise speaks in front of the groups that ask him to speak. The fact that some of those groups are so far right-of-center they’d be illegal in Germany is a feature, not a bug.
Scalise’s handlers probably consider the WaPo article as very valuable free advertising. “Look who hates us! All the people you guys love to hate!”
Betty Cracker
@gogol’s wife: It’s just human interest crap — teens the world over roll their eyes at their parents’ lame jokes and are famous for preferring the company of their peers to their families; it’s the stereotypical rite of passage. My daughter is the same age as the elder Obama daughter almost to the day, and when I read the NYT piece, I took it as a “poor Obama parents — the adorable little kids who skipped into the White House are now teenagers” puff piece. The Obamas are frequently subjected to absurd media attacks, including the girls. I just don’t think the NYT piece is an example of it.
PaulW
His excuse falls between the “dog ate my homework” and “I didn’t know she was your sister.”
gogol's wife
@Betty Cracker:
I took it as, “Here’s another example of how the Obama facade is a big fake.” Even his daughters find him boring. And no evidence is offered for the claims.
Johnk
Funny you should mention blaming racial problems in America on Obama… Here is a letter to the editor from my local paper:
This is from a old white crank in a Snow White county in rural Oregon.
Citizen_X
You mean the one where half of those died trying to preserve slavery?
BruinKid
@Mustang Bobby: Yeah, you need to point out how he later on got a 100% rating from the NAACP on his actual VOTES in the Senate. Ask them then if ANY white Republican who claims they’re not racist has backed it up with their actual VOTES.
BruinKid
Drip, drip, drip. Now Scalise says it was because he didn’t have Google back in 2002 to find out more about the group. Except Google’s been around since 1998.
Villago Delenda Est
@Johnk: Yup, we’ve got mindless fascist fucktards all over this state.
coin operated
I remember a time when soldiers in my unit were told not to drive between the base and the training ranges alone because the indigent population would not treat them well if caught.
Did I mention this speech was given to black soldiers in Fort Polk, LA circa 1989?
This was during the time that Duke’s political ambitons were in ascendency, and the Democrats in LA made damn sure you knew where Duke’s roots lie. Scalise has got to be the biggest moron on the planet to think the “I don’t know” excuse is going to float here.
coin operated
@Johnk:
Having lived in Oregon for the past decade, I can believe that. People think that Oregon is a liberal bastion. What they don’t realize is that while Portland and Eugene keep the Democrats in power, the rest of the state is as red as anyplace south of the Mason-Dixon line.
ET
I call BS on Scalise. He was definitely around around for the “vote for the crook its important” election in 1991 so no way in HELL didn’t he understand what an event attended/ran by David Duke actually was. Considering he was a politician in 2002 he would have known that with this particular A-hole it was guilt by association and to stay the hell away – even in Louisiana and even given the a-hole’s lower visibility. Of course he was a believer/sympathizer then he knew exactly what the deal was and was OK with it.
Alex Milstein
…Scalise’s spokesperson emphasized that the then-state lawmaker was unaware at the time of the group’s ideology and its association with racists and neo-Nazi activists.
But he was well aware of what they were paying him to speak…
J Edward
Even the guy who runs Red State did not believe that this guy did not know who David Duke was.