Tancredo, Buchanan Bruised by Racist 'Karate Chop'

On July 7, 2007, Marcus Epstein had too much to drink and stumbled onto Georgetown’s scenic, shop-lined M Street, walking in no particular direction. At 7:15 p.m., he bumped into a black woman, called her a "nigger," and struck her in the head with an open hand. An off-duty Secret Service agent was watching. Epstein "jogged away," according to the agent’s affidavit, and when Epstein was finally chased down, he "continued to flail his arms while being taken into custody."

After this, say Epstein’s friends, the then-24-year-old conservative activist radically changed his life. He swore off drinking and started attending meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. He started treating the bipolar depression that had gone undiagnosed until that run-in with the law. In January 2008 Epstein plea bargained to a charge of simple assault, as part of a settlement that included a letter of apology to his victim and a $1,000 donation to the United Negro College Fund. He will be in court again July 8, but because he met the terms of his settlement, Epstein’s employers expect the ordeal to end then and there. Epstein could not be reached for comment on Monday.

Epstein was, and still is, one of the utility players in the immigration restrictionist fringe of the conservative movement, the executive director of both Pat Buchanan’s American Cause and former Rep. Tom Tancredo’s (R-Colo.) Team America PAC. Before and after the 2007 incident, Epstein worked (in an unofficial capacity) with Tancredo on his immigration-focused presidential campaign. He organized policy debates between conservative writers and leaders, including one with Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) that was broadcast on C-SPAN. Epstein built coalitions and hobnobbed at Washington parties without much trouble, despite a record of controversial race- and immigration-focused writings and awareness that something bad — the details weren’t clear — had happened in 2007 that convinced him to go on the wagon.

"In college you have this culture of drinking all the time, and he kicked it cold," said Kevin DeAnna, a friend of Epstein and the founder of Youth for Western Civilization, a student group founded in 2008 of which Tancredo is the honorary chairman. "It’s unfortunate that he’s getting hit from this now, years after he stopped doing this kind of thing."

Since May 19, when the watchdog group One People’s Project released the legal documents detailing Epstein’s arrest, the activist and his employers have come under fire. By late Monday, the University of Virginia Law School was telling reporters that Epstein would not be joining the class of 2012, even though he had planned to retire from his jobs at the end of June and "more or less suspend my political activities" to attend the school. But Epstein’s career up through yesterday was marked by controversial articles and speeches, happy feuds with politically correct organizations like the One People’s Project and the Southern Poverty Law Center, and no serious blowback from the mainstream conservative movement. (In 2008, Epstein contributed to the Southern Poverty Law Center in order to win a place on its “Wall of Tolerance” and to warn the group that it was "just one degree of separation away" from him.) Epstein’s past only became an issue after his patrons, Tancredo and Buchanan, spent a week bashing Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor as a "racist" and an an "affirmative action" candidate.

<snip>

http://washingtonindependent.com/45214/tancredo-buchanan-bruised-by-racist-karate-chop

what's his excuse?

should stick together by supporting each other - I was so naive.

From Wiki:

"Marcus Epstein is an American writer-journalist and paleoconservative political activist.

Epstein is half-Korean and half-Jewish. In his brief biography on his personal website Epstein sums up his political beliefs and main interests as follows: "I support a realistic and relatively non-interventionist foreign policy, a very restrictive immigration policy, the free market, a strong national identity with a decentralist political system. Epstein is the executive director of Team America PAC, a political action committee founded by Tom Tancredo, and of The American Cause, a foundation created by Pat Buchanan.

He is the founder of the Robert Taft Club, a monthly meeting of paleoconservative journalists and thinkers in the Washington, D.C. area.

Epstein has written for The American Conservative, Human Events, The Washington Examiner, VDARE, Taki's Magazine,Townhall.com, Congressional Quarterly, The Independent Review, and LewRockwell.com, among other publications."

Many of the words in this wiki entry are under-linked. Here is what Paleoconservative links to on wiki (first two paragraphs - there is much more):

"Paleoconservatism (sometimes shortened to paleo or paleocon when the context is clear) is a term for an anti-communist and anti-authoritarian<1> right-wing movement in the United States that stresses tradition, civil society and anti-federalism, along with religious, regional, national and Western identity.<2> Chilton Williamson, Jr. describes paleoconservatism as "the expression of rootedness: a sense of place and of history, a sense of self derived from forebears, kin, and culture — an identity that is both collective and personal.”<3> Paleoconservativism is not expressed as an ideology and its adherents do not necessarily subscribe to any one party line.<4>

Paleoconservatives in the 21st century often focus on their points of disagreement with neoconservatives, especially on issues like immigration, affirmative action, U.S. funding of its allies abroad, foreign wars, and welfare.<2> They also criticize social democracy, which some refer to as the therapeutic managerial state,<5> the welfare-warfare state<6> or polite totalitarianism.<7> They see themselves as the legitimate heirs to the American conservative tradition.<8>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoconservatism

The Epstein wiki entry is this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Epstein


Why isn't policy corrected before taking out resentments on innocent people? Why does hate have to take the form of symbolic persecution?

Has Buchanan and friends ever led an attack on the policy of commerce in the U.S. that has silently pursued the illegal immigration that he and his friends deplore?

n/t

pull the sheet off his racist asshole persona. Shocking, that the little slimeball works for Tancredo!

Great stuff...

did I hurl racial epithets or karate-chop anyone.

Doesn't UVA have some sort of strict honor code? Surely that racist prick will not be joining its law school.

http://coloradoindependent.com/30129/tancredos-team-america-pac-backs-staffer-who-committed-hate-crime

"I just talked to Bay Buchanan, the co-chairman of Team America PAC and president of the American Cause, who is sticking by executive director (of both groups) Marcus Epstein after this weekend’s revelations about his 2007 arrest for karate-chopping a black woman while yelling a racial epithet.

“I have been very impressed at the courage he has shown in turning his life around,” said Buchanan. “He has acknowledged the many personal problems he was facing at the time, and he’s addressed them.”

Buchanan attributed the release of court documents to “some low-life” who was acting out of spite. “Marcus is going off to law school at the end of the month,” she said, pointing out he had planned to leave before this case became public. “Who cares? This is something that happened two years ago that Marcus has paid a price for.”"