It's bad enough that Pete Sessions lies when he claims to be a fiscal conservative while at the same time voting for irresponsible budget-busting tax cuts for the richest 1 percent.
It's also terrible that my area has been subjected by Tom DeLay's gerrymandering scheme to representation by a congressman who also has praised the tactics of the Taliban.
We can now add something else to the ever-sickening Pete Sessions ledger-- he's as racist as it gets, at least from judging what he said in an interview with Roll Call.
The first two paragraphs of the Roll Call piece are telling enough:
National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (Texas) said Thursday that he believes the depth of House Democrats’ panic can be measured this week by their decision to spend money defending Rep. Sanford Bishop (D) in his southwest Georgia district.
In a phone interview from the campaign trail after a stop in Georgia Wednesday evening, Sessions said that it’s telling that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has had to spend money on "African Americans like Sanford Bishop. And when you have to retreat back to ... your hard base you’re having to make tough decisions."
As if that wasn't enough, Talking Points Memo Memo presents another instance of how insensitive Sessions is to minorities:
Last week, Sessions made light of the skin color of the Princeton University basketball team at a meeting with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. "How often can you go see a bunch of white guys play basketball?" he quipped.
In fact, there were several African-Americans on the Princeton team last year, including coach Sydney Johnson.
The last set of Sessions remarks reminded me of something then-Los Angeles Dodgers official Al Campanis said in 1987 that caused him to be fired from his job. Here's part of what the Los Angeles Times reported about what Campanis said:
And (ABC's) Ted (Koppel on "Nightline") turned to Campanis, saying, "It's a legitimate question," and proceeded to ask him why "there are no black managers, no black general managers, no black owners?"
Campanis responded with a jaw-dropping answer: "I truly believe that they may not have some of the necessities to be, let's say, a field manager, or perhaps a general manager."
When Ted gave Campanis a chance to dig himself out of a hole, Campanis asked, "Why are black men or black people not good swimmers? Because they don't have the buoyancy."
Just as Campanis deserved to be fired for his expressed racism, Pete Sessions deserves nothing less than total defeat for displaying the same trait, among other things.
One addition: I was very pleased with how Democrats are seizing on what Sessions said. From Talking Points Memo:
"NRCC Chair Pete Sessions started the cycle by declaring the Taliban is a model for how Republican can become an insurgency, and today he's reached yet another low," said DCCC spokesman Ryan Rudominer. "House Republican leaders like Pete Sessions' ignorant statements and divisive world views belong in the past just like the exact same failed economic agenda he and his Young Guns have pledged to return to."
(Here's a link to the website for Sessions' opponent, Grier Raggio: http://www.raggioforcongress.com)