The Real Takeaways From The Halperin-Cruz Interview
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| Credit: Tom Willimas/CQ Roll Call/Getty |
Liberal media honcho Mark Halperin really showed his “colors” as he tried to de-Hispanify Sen. Ted Cruz in an interview for Bloomberg Politics over the weekend.
If you like arrogant, condescending, rude, insolent and patronizing Beltway journalism, you may appreciate Halperin’s performance. If you are a person of ordinary sensibilities, however, and not so intoxicated with the leftist worldview that you are incapable of dispassionately assessing the segment, you will have a different reaction.
What first struck me about the interview was not so much the objectively asinine questions Halperin asked but his obvious motive and attitude in asking them. Aside from a few throwaways, all of his questions were aimed at exposing Cruz as an inauthentic Hispanic. And as insulting as that is, there is something more noteworthy about it that some are missing in all the hubbub about the interview.
Halperin’s unstated premise underlying his questions is that one cannot have a bona fide Hispanic heritage if he doesn’t continue to bathe himself in the Hispanic culture and view American politics from a Hispanic prism. If you are ethnically Hispanic but have assimilated into American culture and embrace the American idea of government, you ought not be entitled to lay claim to your ethnicity or to receive support from the Hispanic community. Halperin and his liberal friends apply the same standards to assess African-American candidacies.
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