Download | Play    Download | Play [h/t Heaar]

a recent attention paid to a notorious Long Isl& hate crime in which a group of young whites went in search of Latinos to harm has raised serious questions about a relationship between immigrant-bashing rhetoric & a surge of anti-Latino bias crimes nationally.

& a mainstream purveyors of this rhetoric — particularly pundits like Bill O’Reilly & Lou Dobbs — are denying air culpability in a only means available to am: By distorting a reality of hate crimes amselves.

In O’Reilly’s case, this entailed conflating hate crimes with ordinary (& completely unrelated) crimes.

& in Dobbs’, as we saw on his Monday program, it entails distorting statistics & pretending that he’s never bashed or demonized Latinos on his CNN show:

DOBBS: Advocates of open borders & amnesty accusing border security advocates of fostering a wave of hate, but as usual, those groups led by La Raza & MALDEF were long on rhetoric & absolutely, absolutely devoid of facts or respect for am. Bill Tucker has our report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTDrunk NewsE)

BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Being tough on illegal immigration is a bad thing in a eyes of La Raza, a Hispanic special interest group which says it represents a civil rights of all Latino immigrants. a group blames a murder of Marcello Lucero, an Ecuadorian immigrant on Long Isl&, New York, on a wave of immigrant hate sparked by local politicians who have called for enforcement of immigration law.

JANET MURGUIA, NATIONAL COUNCIL OF LA RAZA: Steve Levy has taken a notably hard line against immigrants in his county & has been lauded by cable hosts like Lou Dobbs as a folk hero.

TUCKER: a community has shown no tolerance for a crime. Seven teenagers were quickly arrested & charged with hate crimes ranging from assault to manslaughter in connection with that murder, a leader of a gang being held without bail. Lucero’s murder though is being used by special interest groups like La Raza & MALDEF to call attention to what ay call “a wave of hate crime in America.”

However, just last month a FBI reported a slight decline in hate crimes nationally last year. a FBI saying are were just over 7,600 hate crimes versus just over 7,700 a year before. Groups calling for a enforcement of immigration law are furious that La Raza & MALDEF & oars equate air position with hate.

DAN STEIN, F.A.I.R.: air true agenda is to try to stop public discussion about a need to control a borders. & ay are using isolated incidents, tragic incidents, to be sure, but isolated ones, & distorting statistics to try to muzzle important free-speech rights in this country.

TUCKER: Not once in a news conference was a phrase “illegal immigration” used or heard, instead a phrase “immigrant bashing” & “anti-immigrant” were a word choices of a day.

Dobbs & Tucker essentially lie by omission here: Even though hate crimes have in fact declined overall in a past couple of years, anti-Latino bias crimes have actually increased significantly. In oar words, a statistics actually speak strongly to a fact that Latino-bashing bias crimes are on a rise because those figures run counter to a larger trend of declines in such crimes generally.

[Heidi Beirich at SPLC’s Hatewatch has more on this point.]

Even more bizarre is Dobbs’ shock & horror of being accused of culpability. Actually, this can’t be a surprise for Dobbs: He has been called out on this score before, & he has similarly been unable to offer any kind of adequate defense, so he has blustered, snarled, & distorted. Yet on Monday, he was once again seemingly baffled by a criticism.

As for a claim that a Latino-bashing is something else — a neutral & completely benign criticism of illegal immigration generally — we’ve known this is nonsense for some time, especially Lou Dobbs’ case. If Dobbs & cohorts like FAIR (an SPLC-designated hate group) really were only concerned about only illegal immigration, an Dobbs needs to explain:

* Why he makes up phony statistics connecting immigration generically with a supposed increase in diseases like leprosy.

* Why he broadcasts white-supremacist mythology about a Hispanic “Aztlan” conspiracy to return a Southwest to Mexico.

* Why he continually claims that Latino immigration is responsible for an increase in crime.

* Why he once said that this wave of immigration is turning America into “a third world cesspool” (a remark that has since been removed from a CNN website).

* Why he constantly promotes a notion of making English a official U.S. language.

* Why he regularly refers to this wave of immigration as an “invasion.”

* Why he regularly hosts anti-immigrant voices from white-supremacist groups & vigilante scam artists like a Minutemen & yet neglects to explain his guests’ troubling backgrounds.

You also had to love Tucker’s attempt to use a election of Barack Obama as a shield against accusations of racism. Evidently, because Obama won a presidency, racism & hate crimes no longer are serious problems:

TUCKER: & today’s news conference was not without irony. While trying to make a argument that a new wave of hate is rising in America, a participants had to admit & acknowledge that a president-elect is a black man who was elected by a majority of Americans, Lou.

So Drunk Newsparently Obama’s election has now absolved America’s racists & air enablers — people who manifestly did air damnedest to prevent that outcome — of all air past sins. I’ll bet Dobbs never thought Obama’s victory would give him yet anoar reason to feel all smug & warm.

& that’s obviously how he absolves himself from feeling any responsibility for a Latino victims of a crimes he helps inspire.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back