Syndicated columnist and member of the San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board Ruben Navarrette Jr. has been fluffing up Alberto Gonzales a lot recently (March 7, March 21), so it should come as no suprise that he’s continuing to shovel muck today in a special CNN commentary.  What’s shocking is the entirely new level to which he takes the insanity.

To be up front, there’s a halfway legitimate point in all of Navarrette’s mess, which is that accepting Gonzales as a scapegoat when it’s the White House and Karl Rove behind this whole mess, is not a victory.  I’m all for Rove paying for what he did as well.  But he frames his whole argument in disgusting racist terms and tries to marginalize anyone who would have a gripe against “an honorable public servant … [and] … a straight shooter” by assuming that there’s no way that criticism could be fair or justified.

He’s good enough to give us a rundown of the people who object to Gonzales’ performance as Attorney General and makes it pretty clear that the list at this point includes virtually everyone except President Bush.  But apparently that’s just because everyone is wrong, and most of them just hate a successful Hispanic.

Leading this lynch mob are white liberals who resent Gonzales because they can’t claim the credit for his life’s accomplishments and because they can’t get him to curtsy. Why should he? Gonzales doesn’t owe them a damn thing.

Yes, that’s right. It’s all those racist white liberals who insist on keeping minorities down and can’t stand it when one of them gets power,  It’s because he doesn’t genuflect at the altar of white people that he’s hated.  It can’t possibly have anything to do with his actual job performance.  Or his systematic evisceration of the Constitution of the United States.  Which is, ultimately, where the racial argument breaks down horribly.  Navarrette would have us believe that Gonzales can’t possibly be getting criticism that’s not infused with racist bitterness.  But the flipside of this argument is that, because of his race, he gets a free pass.  Well I’m sorry, but that isn’t how it works.  You do the job and you answer for your performance.

He also argues that Democrats just pose “with mariachis as they nibble chips and salsa on Cinco De Mayo” while the real uplifting of the Hispanic community, entirely and solely in the form of Alberto Gonzales, has been done by George W. Bush.  While absurdly simplistic and not particularly based in any reality that I’m familiar with, it doesn’t have anything to do with the firings of U.S. Attorneys.

It’s telling that a Gonzales apologist wants to talk about anything except the issue at hand.  Navarrette dispenses quickly and easily with the actual substance of the US Attorney issue by laying it all on Karl Rove, then whips up an emotional frenzy over non-issues, because he knows discussing the real complaints would be a losing proposition.  Gonzales is responsible for the Justice Department, and has a long history of doing a poor job in that position.  Perhaps Navarette has a point if his argument is that this incident, if isolated, would not be grounds for Gonzales’ departure.  But that dodges the crux of the problem.  Alberto Gonzales became Attorney General in August of 2005, and in that time, the Justice Department has delivered less and less justice by the day.  That is a failure of the job, and if this incident is the straw that breaks the camel’s back, so be it.

The commentary closes with an ominous, if absurdly condescending in every direction, prediction for Democrats in 2008:

Well, if they succeed in running him off without a fair hearing, many Hispanics won’t forget the shoddy treatment afforded this grandson of Mexican immigrants. You watch. Democrats will have to intensify their efforts to win Hispanic votes in the 2008 elections. And there’s not that much chips and salsa on the planet.

It sounds to me as though the lesson being pitched here is that the color of Gonzales’ skin is more important than the substance of his job performance whether you approve or disapprove of the job performance.  Hispanics will quit the Democratic party en masse, Navarrette imagines, because Democrats aren’t defending the country, they’re attacking skin color.

If Gonzales wants a fair hearing, guess what? He can have one.  In a revelatory change of course since January of this year (coincidence?), Congress will actually conduct legitimate investigations.  All Gonzales has to do is show up and solemnly swear.  Except, of course, that George Bush, the hero of racial equality in this story remember, doesn’t want the truth to come out.  Doesn’t sound particularly helpful to the Gonzales cause to me.  But then again, I see Gonzales as a man, not a color.  Ruben Navarrette Jr. may want to try it sometime.

(Oh… My… Gawd! The OC Republicans are at it again! – promoted by atdleft)

Interesting new development in the OC Supervisors’ Race. GOP candidate Janet Nguyen sent out a press release in Vietnamese with some pretty astounding racist content. (Click here for larger image.)

(Translation after the flip)

When Nguyen’s campaign was asked for an English translation of the press release, they provided some innocuous text about how Nguyen can win if the Vietnamese community unites behind a single Vietnamese candidate. (There are 4 Vietnamese on the ballot.)

But an anonymous blog reader provided a more thorough translation of the original release:

In less than two weeks, Vietnamese Americans will vote for a County Supervisor, either Mexican, American or whatever; to supervise an area of Orange County where Vietnamese are the majority population. Or we will put a Vietnamese into an important position of real power, making history in Orange County’s 30 year old Vietnamese community. If the Vietnamese community is able to accomplish this, it will be a remarkable action which reflects the political maturity of the community.

As of January 23 11,000 absentee ballots had been received by the Orange County Registrar of Voters. More than 43% of these were from Vietnamese, 10% from Mexicans, and 46% from other ethnic groups. The returned ballots came from Republicans (51%), Democrats (33%), and Decline to State or other parties (16%). City breakdown was 43% Garden Grove, Santa Ana 23%, Westminster 25%.

Based on the this information, the candidate most likely to win and bring victory to the Vietnamese community is Janet Nguyen. She will be the youngest Asian to become Supervisor of Orange County and California, bringing pride to our community. Even though there are other Vietnamese candidates, the absentee balloting and professional campaign analysts recognize Janet Nguyen’s advantage. The very small absentee ballot return rate by Mexicans, in addition to low returns from Santa Ana, compared to Garden Grove, the Republican Mexican’s [a reference to Republican Carlos Bustamente] odds of winning have vanished. The Santa Ana and Democratic voting percentage is low compared to the Republicans, thus the Democratic candidate will not have a chance. Due in part to Mexican voters dividing their votes, and in part to the former Democratic US President’s [apparently a reference to endorsed Democrat Tom Umberg] cheating on his wife and kids and lying about his military responsibility, the Democratic voters are disillusioned, and no longer want to vote.

The main reasons Janet Nguyen will win are the large number of Vietnamese absentee votes and previous polls showing that more than 60% of the Vietnamese community trusts Janet Nguyen. Garden Grove is her territory. She will also get votes from other ethnic communities, women, seniors, Republicans who do not like Mexicans, and people from Westminster. She has endorsements from the mayors of Garden Grove and Westminster. Furthermore, the campaign has brought several Vietnamese community issues have brought to light. There has been dirty campaigning and evidence of shady integrity in the other Vietnamese candidates, bringing about distrust in the Vietnamese community. The Vietnamese community will vote for Janet Nguyen. Her victory is assured.

(If you’re in SoCal, go GOTV in CA-50 – promoted by SFBrianCL)

California Women Vote are looking for people to help get the vote out on the days leading up to the Tuesday, June 6th election.  This race between Democrat Francine Busby and Republican Brian Bilbray is going to be extremely close and every vote that we help to turn out to the polls will make a difference in the final result. This is the first time in a long while that a Democrat could win this district and could be the beginning of a larger change in Congressional leadership across the country.
We are meeting each day, June 3rd through June 6th at:

San Diego Marriott Del Mar
11966 El Camino Real
San Diego, CA 92130

We will have signs and greeters at each entrance.More details in the extended.

You can just show up at the above location at the beginning of each shift:

Saturday, June 3 – 9:00 AM or 1:00 PM
Sunday, June 4th – Noon or 4:00 PM
Monday, June 5th – Noon or 4:00 PM
Tuesday, June 6th – 6:30 AM or 10:45 AM or 4:00 PM

Please visit www.californiawomenvote.org for more information. 

Check out this editorial from the North County Times about Dick Cheney’s visit to California 50 District the upcoming June 6th special election. Visit www.californiawomenvote.org and www.myspace.com/cawomenvote for more information.

When Dick Cheney came to town

By: JOHN VAN DOORN – Staff Writer

Imagine that: Vice President Dick Cheney came to town to (1) endorse Brian Bilbray, and (2) to say that the eyes of the nation were on the 50th Congressional District, which is where Bilbray is running.

This was news. Voters in the 50th, much of which lies in North County, cannot be expected to check the eyes of the nation, not without years of ophthalmological instruction. If the vice president can, and did, more power to him. All those eyes. We’d best stand up straight and try not to stammer.
Cheney was an especially big gun to visit San Diego for the purpose of endorsement, even if the significance of the race in the national scheme of things had been obvious for months. Cheney’s timeline was a trifle askew: More eyes of the nation will be focused on the 50th during and after a vice president’s visit than before.

More to the point: Republicans are running scared, even if very few will say it out loud. So Cheney’s visit was no surprise.

The fall of the house of Cunningham is a very serious part of the fear. While in Congress as the representative for the 50th district, Randy Cunningham took bribes in cash, cars, houses, yachts and antiques to do what he could for defense contractors.

And went to jail, said to be the worst offender in the history of Congress, noted for offenders of every stripe.

There is fear elsewhere among Republicans because corruption on their side of the aisle in Washington has tainted others and engulfed a few, such as Tom DeLay. Almost certainly there are more storms to come —- all sides agree on that, the Democrats gleefully —- and this creates a certain edginess among politicians and their handlers.

(To be fair, or at least balanced, the Democrats have a few bad apples, too, but the scale seems less imposing. The Republicans for the moment have the market cornered.)

You throw in a deceitful war, the bumbles of Katrina, the grotesqueries of immigration policy, and the fatness of Fat Oil and you’d run scared, too.

Mind you, Bilbray is no prize. As a congressman once before, and as a lobbyist after that, he had certain connections in Washington and involvements with oil companies that appear, at least to his critics, unsavory.

Thus, Cheney came to town. Once an oil man himself, he spoke to the faithful about the campaign in the 50th District, and said the nation needs Brian Bilbray. Cheney also spoke to military groups and raced about the region doing what he could for George and country.

The 50th race has been ugly, at least in terms of television advertising. The assaults by the Republican machine in Washington on the Democratic aspirant, Francine Busby, have ranged in tone from vicious to scurrilous, with several stops in between.

Busby’s people have gone negative, as well, but they say they’re only defending their candidate.