After Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Government rounded up Japanese people living in the states and moved them to various camps, one of the most famous being Manzanar. Clearly this was a reaction to the terrible tragedy/attack on our country, but the lesson we have learned since was that you can’t judge a book by it’s cover. A very large portion of the Japanese living in these camps were loyal to our country, but merely got wrapped up in the fervor due to their skin color and heritage.

Everyone who is serious about ending these types of tragedies in the future needs to be alert when people make broad characterizations about people with a certain race, religion, sexuality, etc.

Just yesterday, Chuck Grassley made a statement that made my jaw drop about Ninth Circuit judicial nominee, Goodwin Liu. He said on the floor of the Senate, “Does [Liu] think we’re the communist-run China? That the government runs everything?”

Watch this video of Grassley explaining to Liu how his “communist” Chinese world view is misguided:

First off, Grassley needs to tone down the knee-jerk comparison of Asian-Americans to communists in China.  Even if his delusional (and misguided) point was to argue that Liu had big government beliefs, that doesn’t give him the right to tie a red flag around his arm and spew crazy rhetoric that would make an uninformed listener question whether or not Liu was the tank driver who ran over the unnarmed demonstrator in Tienanmen square.

Second, Liu is the child of Taiwanese immigrants.  Apparently Grassley never got the memo that many Taiwanese immigrants came here to support democracy, because their country has been struggling to get out from under the weight of China.

Finally, Grassley was taking a 2005 op-ed written by Liu completely out of context.  In the op-ed, Liu argued that two neo-conservative organizations were using words like “free enterprise” and “limited government” in order to promote ideological attacks on environmental, workplace and consumer protections.  It doesn’t take a genius to be able to see how politicians have been using terms like “limited government” recently to push big government, top-down, agendas.  Just take a look at the inaugural speeches of top-down elected officials like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker or Florida Governor Rick Scott.

Even though Liu wasn’t confirmed to the court yesterday for a host of reasons, Chuck Grassley’s backhanded big-government attacks, comparing him to a communist Chinese sympathizer, have NO place on the floor of the Senate.  If Republicans want to say that he supports higher taxes, more government control of business, or any of their other canned attacks, that’s fine.  Just don’t step across the line and use someones perceived race as a blunt political weapon.

Dozens of media outlets covered Grassley’s comments yesterday, but the Iowa media elite apparently decided to ignore the latest rhetorical vomit that came from our senior Republican senator.  Wouldn’t it be great if our reporters here paid more attention to how often Grassley steps over the line?

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