Another Day – Another Example Of Racial McCarthyism at MSNBC

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio blocked the nomination of Judge William Thomas to the federal bench after a careful review of his record raised red flags. A spokeswoman for Rubio explained back in September that the Senator would be withdrawing his support for Thomas due to his concerns about his “judicial temperament” and “his willingness to impose appropriate criminal sentences.”

“The nomination of Judge Thomas has also been thoroughly reviewed, and Senator Rubio has determined that Thomas’s record on the state court raises serious concerns about his fitness for a lifetime federal appointment. Those concerns include questions about his judicial temperament and his willingness to impose appropriate criminal sentences, particularly in the two high-profile cases of Michele Traverso and Joel Lebron earlier this year. After reviewing Thomas’s record, Senator Rubio cannot support moving forward with the nomination at this time.”

But those reasons were not good enough for racial McCarthyite Chris Hayes at MSNBC. On his primetime show “All In” Tuesday, Hayes, with no evidence whatsoever to back it up,  accused Rubio of blocking the “historic” nomination of a gay black man, because of an “increasingly desperate, pathetic, and craven attempt to win back the right wing.” 

Via Jamie Weinstein at The Daily Caller:

Hayes explained that since Rubio earned the ire of some in the conservative base by supporting the Senate’s “Gang of Eight” immigration bill, he is now attempting to win that constituency back by pandering to it. And since, according to Hayes, the conservative base loves nothing more than blocking gay black judges from making it to the federal bench, Rubio pulled his support for Thomas, who would be the first openly gay black federal judge.

“And now Marco Rubio can say with pride to his base that he successfully blocked the first openly gay black trial judge in American history,” Hayes pronounced. “These are what the victories for congressional Republicans look like these days. Not implementing some affirmative policy victory but successfully hurting someone or some group of people. Food stamp recipients. The long-term unemployed. A qualified out gay black man who was within a hair’s breadth of the federal bench.”

There is one person who seems oddly focused on Judge Thomas’ race and sexual orientation – and that person is Chris Hayes – not Marco Rubio or his constituents.

As the executive director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition told The Daily Caller, last week, it has become “fashionable” for media commentators at MSNBC to engage in divisive racial rhetoric, and he described the tactic as racial McCarthyism.

“They focus entirely on race and calling racism where it doesn’t exist, and it’s time for the liberal community to call them out,”said Michael Meyers, longtime former member of the ACLU’s Board of Directors. 

“I’m an African-American, and I’m a liberal,” Meyers said. “I shook when I watched that segment where they were calling out the African-American grandchild of Mitt Romney. I was really appalled.”

“It’s worse than divisive. It’s crying racism where the racism doesn’t exist. They just make this stuff up. Everything becomes about race, about calling people racists when they haven’t said anything racist. It’s Orwellian Doublespeak.”

Is this not a good description of what Chris Hayes just did to Mark Rubio and his conservative base?