I saw this story on a Daily Kos diary by KTinTX, Mehlman Clueless on Late Edition . Ken Mehlman, while being interviewed on Late Edition, actually said:
The NAACP unfortunately in the 2000 campaign likened the president to James Byrd, who was a racist killer in east Texas, who the president brought to justice.
Wow. Amazing, isn’t it? The NAACP ran ads in the 2000 election criticizing Bush for his insensitivity to the brutal, racist killing of an African American man named James Byrd. Five years later, the head of the RNC, adds further insult to injury by confusing James Byrd with his brutal killer. Hmm. Where I come from, that is what’s known as a “gaffe”.
Not only a gaffe, but a huge one. After all, this is a party that is trying to appear to reach out to African Americans. Didn’t you just love Bush’s “outreach” on the issue of Social Security?
“African-American males die sooner than other males do, which means the system is inherently unfair to a certain group of people. And that needs to be fixed.”
Oh, and would someone please caption the picture in this article on the same topic? It just cries out for one, but nothing’s coming to me.
I should note that I really don’t watch a whole lot of news, so I can’t say for certain if there has been any attention drawn to Ken Mehlman’s stunningly insensitive gaffe. So, those of you who watch the news so I don’t have to, tell me…
Has Mehlman’s remark, standing alone without any context, been repeated a thousand times, followed by various pundits opining that Mehlman is a “loose cannon” or “not ready for primetime”?
Have there been demands for an apology from Mehlman?
Have prominent Republicans been put on the spot to defend/denounce him?
I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be going out on too much of a limb to wager that the answers to all of those questions would be no. And if that is indeed the case, shouldn’t people in the media be hearing from us about this?
