ABC reports that Congressman Alcee Hastings (D-Fla) tried to rally Jews to Obama on Wednesday by saying this:   

"If Sarah Palin isn’t enough of a reason for you to get over whatever your problem is with Barack Obama, then you damn well had better pay attention. Anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks. So, you just think this through."

Hastings made his comments in D.C. while participating in a panel discussion sponsored by the National Jewish Democratic Council. 

That level of ignorance and prejudice hurts.  It hurts to see that it exists.  It hurts to acknowledge that it's on our side of the political divide.  And it hurts the party's chances of winning as big as it might on election day.

In fact, his statement is so dumb, so illogical, so incoherent, that I would have suspected it was a Palin quote.  

Blacks and Jews are not the equivalent of a very smelly, very homely quadruped.

"Hunter" is not the equivalent of "racist." 

"Hunter" is not even the equivalent of "conservative." 

His statement also seems to imply that Blacks, Jews and Democrats don’t hunt.  That’s just the sort of implication that has helped the wingnuts paint our party as full of people who are either out of touch with, or downright enemies of, sportsmen and women.  An awful lot of us are weary and resentful of that characterization of our party and ourselves.

In fact hunting has absolutely nothing to do with race, and trying to make it seem as if it does reveals some ugly thought processes.  The most charitable interpretation is that Hastings is playing the race and fear cards for the sake of political gain (which puts him in company with Bush, Cheney, Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, etc., and shows that he doesn’t know much about politics).

Hastings’ office offered a defense so anemic and so tortured, you would have thought it was from the McCain camp:  "anyone," they offered, didn't mean hunters in general, it meant Palin in specific, because "that's how she defines herself." (As if other hunters don’t’ define themselves, at least in part, as hunters?  WTF?) 

Please. 

Hastings must be a disciple of Humpty Dumpty:

"When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.”

Sorry, but there’s no way to spin out of it.  Hastings made a statement that was prejudiced, racially inflammatory and just plain dumb – and then didn’t own up to, or apologize for, it.  He should shut up, go away or both.

(And, Congressman, one more thing.  After you shoot a moose, you "field dress" it.  In some parts, you might "dress," "clean" or even "gut" it.  But you never "strip" it.  If you're going to talk about something, it’s best to know at least one tiny thing about it.)