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Anti-Immigrant Tancredo Takes on Sotomayor, Calls NCLR the Latino KKK Without the Hoods

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The anti-immigrant crowd just can’t seem to stop attacking the President’s Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, on the topic of race. In, “Media Matters’ Boehlert goes head-to-head with Tancredo over Sotomayor on CNN,” Media Matters exposes the out-of-touch sentiments and statements of the anti-immigrant movement’s biggest national hero, Tom Tancredo. Tancredo calls the President’s nominee a “racist” and the largest latino civil rights organization in the United States, NCLR, a quote-unquote:

…Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses.

Just like the NAACP is the hoodless Black KKK, right Tancredo? Clearly these guys are just militant, racist, murderers, minus the sheets.

Watch it:

As Boehlert points out, it is unclear to begin with why the former Republican Presidential Candidate and Congressman felt compelled to damn a comment by Sotomayor, made eight years ago, in which she says that her life experience has made her a better judge. It is peculiar, as blogger Jed Lewison points out, that another Supreme Court Justice, Judge Alito, made a very similar, if not more direct, case without so much as a peep from Tancredo, Krikorian, or any of the other heads of the Anti-Immigrant Lobby: As Lewison notes:

Alito said that his family’s experience as immigrants influenced his outlook on immigration cases.

It’s clear that immigration hardliners just can’t seem to stop attacking Judge Sotomayor, the President’s nominee for the highest court in the United States, on race.

What’s not clear is how this helps their cause one bit.

UPDATE: Tancredo’s KKK attack on NCLR is all over The Politico, Think Progress, Huffington Post, Talking Points Memo, Daily Kos, the Colorado Independent, and more.

On Crooks and Liars’ Third Branch, Dave Meyer argues:

Mel Martinez should join Senator McCain in denouncing Tancredo. Less than three months ago, Martinez prominently accepted a Capital Award from NCLR in recognition of his “outstanding support of public policies that are vital to Hispanic Americans.”

Somebody has to take a stand, speak the truth about an organization whose mission is to “improve opportunities for Hispanic Americans,” and repair the GOP brand with Latinos, that’s for sure. Michael Steele, maybe?