Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez has a disturbingly long history of racially insensitive remarks, but her latest is really something. President Obama recently endorsed Sanchez's opponent in the November election for California’s open Senate seat, fellow Democrat Kamala Harris, and Sanchez did not react appropriately:
Sanchez was asked why the president had endorsed Harris in the unusual race between two Democrats this year. Speaking in Spanish, she noted that Obama and Harris are longtime friends, then added: "She is African American. He is, too."
Late last year, citing made-up statistics, Sanchez claimed that "between 5 and 20 percent" of Muslims "have a desire for a caliphate" and "are willing to use and they do use terrorism" to achieve those ends. Prior to that, Sanchez issued a mocking "war whoop" to describe an East Indian supporter whom she mistakenly thought was an American Indian. And in 2010, she complained that "the Vietnamese" were "trying to take" her House seat and give it to her Republican opponent that year, Van Tran, who is of Vietnamese ancestry.
These kinds of retrograde remarks are utterly embarrassing, particularly because Sanchez keeps making them. There are many reasons the Democratic establishment has rallied around Harris, and this is one of them. With any luck, she'll send Sanchez into early retirement this fall.