Tancredo: La Raza is "a Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses."

Whenever I hear the latest Republican talking point being spouted, I always think of the time shortly after the invasion of Iraq when Jack Straw told us that we had to be patient, whilst the troops searched for the WMD, and bear in mind that Iraq "is twice the size of France".

I thought that sounded odd, so I looked it up, and it turned out that Iraq was actually about four fifths the size of France.

Nevertheless, for the next few weeks, numerous politicians would pop up on our screens all repeating Straw's falsehood.

I say this because I feel sure the same is about to occur concerning La Raza, now that Tom Tancredo has called them, "a Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses." It will be a very short time indeed before O'Reilly and Beck start echoing this statement.

Now, I freely admit that I am playing catch-up here and that I know very little about La Raza, but the comparison strikes me as simply absurd.

The KKK represented the most dominant culture in the country and sought to preserve that dominance through violent means based on the premise that they believed they were racially superior to other cultures.

La Raza represents an ethnic minority and seeks to create more equality of opportunity for Hispanic Americans.

On what planet are those two things even comparable?

La Raza has hit back:

“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” National Council of La Raza spokesperson Lisa Navarrete told The Colorado Independent. “He’s defamed our organization and told falsehoods about our organization without any basis in fact or evidence. That’s not who we are or what we do.

“If you look at Mr. Tancredos’ record, he’s often spoken about things he doesn’t know anything about.”

“He’s at the far extreme of the Republican Party,” she said. “He’s someone who has been instrumental in alienating the Republican Party from the Latino community. We’ve been urging the Republican Party to try to outreach to the Latino community, and they did a good job of it until they let people like Tom Tancredo take over the debate on immigration.

It’s not the first time the Latino civil rights group has been inaccurately characterized by Tancredo, Navarrete said, though he hasn’t gone so far as to compare NCLR with the Ku Klux Klan before.

“He is a leading spokesperson and a leading figure in the anti-immigrant extremist movement, and as such we’re a target for anti-immigrant extremists,” Navarrete said.

Watch this space though, it will only be a matter of time before O'Reilly and Beck are highlighting membership of La Raza as akin to joining a terrorist group.

Tags: ThinkProgress, Sotomayor, Tancredo