From the Miami New Times:
[Huffington’s tweet] is particularly troubling considering Rubio’s parents fled Cuba, a country ruined by one of the worst Latin American dictator. Saying Rubio looks “Central American” when he’s in fact a Cuban-American is just sloppy and ignorant in a “you people all look the same to me” kind of way.
For once, we’re going to have to agree with, oh boy, Andrew Breitbart.
“Of course the mainstream media will fail to notice that this is a racist comment, which is no less racist than if a Republican compared Obama to Idi Amin”…
The takeaway:
Here’s the question Huffington really needs to answer: Was she passing on the quote because she thought it was funny or was she just highlighting a potentially inflammatory quote about Rubio from a former GOP insider for semi-journalistic purposes.
Jokes are jokes, but it’s another matter entirely when the purveyor of such a joke consistently crucifies anyone on the right for doing such. Odd, too, that Dowd was identified as a “GOP strategist” when clearly he’s worked on both sides of the aisle. Also odd is how Huffington wrote “Matthew Dowd’s take.” Take implies serious, loaded sentiment. She didn’t write joke. Like I said, odd.
And what of the quoted man in question?
I briefly communicated with Dowd; he says:
A shot of rubio popped up Tuesday night late with a whole bunch of flags behind him and I said quote “whoever put that background and staging together it makes him look like a central american dictator”. It was a joke and i was poking fun at whoever did that to him.
Is speed bump part of a HuffPo blogger job description? Doesn’t seem that Dowd believes so.