Rosario Marin, former Treasuer of the U.S., is in the GOP primary for the Senate seat in California. I don’t know much about her politics yet, or what her chances are, but what little I know about her is that she is a decent sort and a solid Republican. I’m watching FOX news last night (anything to get away from my duties of writing something sensible on the Emancipation Proclamation!) when I see the above cited report. A Hispanic supporter of Howard Dean called her a "house Mexican" who is not being true to her race! I saw the guy (his name is Steven Ybarra and he is a DNC official and head of "Latinos for Dean") on the tube and he was unrepentant. I couldn’t believe it and I looked for it to be mentioned on other news programs and, surprise, it was not. This is an outrage and good folks ought to be up in arms over it. The best that can be said about it is that she is now in the good company of Colin Powell, Condolizza Rice, and Clarence Thomas! But where is the outrage?

Here is the statement that Rosario Marin put out after Ybarra’s comment: "Apparently, according to Mr. Ybarra and many of his fellow Democrats, if you are not a liberal Democrat, then you shouldn’t be considered a legitimate minority. It doesn’t matter that I’m an immigrant, the daughter of a janitor and a seamstress, or that I had to teach myself English because my first language was Spanish." Just so. It is possible that liberals (and liberal Hispanics) are panicked given this California poll.