Yglesias | By Mathew Yglesias |8 November 2009

Right-Wing Unleashes Racism on Rep Cao

Representative Joseph Cao is a freshman Republican who won 49.6 percent of the vote against a corrupt incumbent in a district that’s 64% black and has a median income of $25,000. I think it should come as no surprise that someone in that situation might want to break with the GOP leadership now and then. For example, he voted for the health care reform bill last night. For his trouble, he’s being treated to some interesting tweets:

RT @RightBloggerPat: @AnhJosephCao You B*****d piece of ***t f***! GO BACK TO Saigon, South Vietnam where you f***ing BELONG GOOK! #TCOT

There’s also a whole [1] bunch of folks [2] who’ve decided [3] that it’d be hilarious to start referring to Rep. Cao as “Mao” because, you see, they’re both responsible for the deaths of millions Asians. Also this [4].

[End of Yglesias Post | Footnotes added]

[1] DemConWatch has removed the ‘Mao’ reference and attributed the racism to their source: “Editorial note: We previously had a reference here referring to Congressman Cao as Congressman Mao. The reference, was, in our minds, a play on the GOP wanting to call Democrats “socialists”. We did not intend anything racist by the remark. However, upon further review, the source we used may well have had a racist intent, so we have decided to remove the link and the quote. We apologize to anyone who was offended by the reference. – The Mgmt“.

[2] The Freedom Post refers to: “One unprincipled Republican, Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA), (who will now forever be know as Joseph “Mao”)…”, and provide his contact information with the remark, “If you would like to arrange a meeting with Congressman Cao (Mao), contact his scheduler at …”!

[3] See here for a follow-up explanation, of sorts! Caution: Abusive language.

[4] the link (now?) leads to a cover page: “This person has protected their tweets.”