What is it with racist Republicans?

Ugh. Here we go again. To set the stage, the House was debating a bill to protect gun manufacturers from many lawsuits. I'll let the WP take it away:

Yesterday's debate suddenly veered from guns to race when [Wyoming Rep. Barbara] Cubin criticized a failed Democratic amendment that would have banned gun sales to drug addicts or people in drug treatment. After noting that her sons, ages 25 and 30, "are blond-haired and blue-eyed," she said: "One amendment today said we could not sell guns to anybody under drug treatment. So does that mean that if you go into a black community you can't sell any guns to any black person?"

Rep. Melvin Watt (D-N.C.), who is black, interrupted and demanded that Cubin retract the statement. Cubin said that she did not mean to offend her "neighbors" on the Democratic side, and maintained that her comment was within House rules.

Watt was not satisfied. "She needs to apologize for using words that are offensive for the entire African American race," he said. He demanded Cubin's comment be "taken down," meaning it was inappropriate for a House debate. In a largely party-line vote, the GOP-controlled House voted 227 to 195 to uphold the chair's ruling that the remark fell within House rules.

So, a Republican lawmaker makes a racist statement. The Democrats ask for a form of censure (striking the remarks from the record), and the GOP votes, along party lines, to allow the racist statement to stay on the record.

And Trent Lott was supposed to have exorcised the GOP's ghosts of racist past.

Posted April 10, 2003 04:18 PM | Comments (57)