Rocky Mountain News: America's Worst Congressman (Tancredo)

Tom Tancredo, America’s Worst Congressman
by Paul Campos

America’s worst congressman, Tom Tancredo, caused quite a stir recently when he aired a television ad for his presidential campaign. The ad features a man in a hooded sweatshirt detonating a backpack bomb in a shopping mall, then cuts to scenes of carnage from terrorist attacks in Europe.

“There are consequences to open borders beyond the 20 million aliens who have come to take our jobs,” a voice intones. “Islamic terrorists now freely roam U.S. soil, jihadists who froth with hate, here to do as they have in London, Spain, Russia. The price we pay for spineless politicians who refuse to defend our borders against those who come to kill.”

“I approve this message because someone needs to say it,” Tancredo announces. You’ll get no politically correct mealy-mouthed prevaricating from Tancredo. If you’re looking for some good old-fashioned nativist fearmongering, he’s your man, or more precisely your GOP presidential candidate.

It’s worth emphasizing that Tancredo is not a racist nut exposing his paranoid delusions on some fringe Web site. He’s a racist nut who has made his paranoid delusions the centerpiece of a bona fide Republican Party presidential campaign. (Actually I don’t know if Tancredo himself is a racist, and the question holds no interest for me. Regarding immigration, he talks and acts exactly like a racist would and, when judging a politician, that’s the only thing that matters).

And, with the exception of Mike Huckabee, all the first-tier Republican candidates are competing to sound just as “tough” on immigration as the decidedly second-tier Colorado member of Congress. (Don’t be surprised if whoever wins the nomination runs ads very similar to Tancredo’s next fall.) ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2007/nov/27/campos-americas-worst-congressman/