House Majority Whip Spoke at White Supremacists Conference

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Don't be surprised to see more such stuff.

Let's all remember -- loathsome as David DuKKKe is, the Koch syndicate and its front groups have far more capacity to gut democracy in America.

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How come this is all being revealed now? I'm surprised it didn't happen in 2008, when he was first elected.

1. Someone has it in for Representative Scalise.

2. It may be old stuff -- but so is Bill Cosby's sexual conduct (should such be shown true), which is even older.

3. There is no valid cause for anyone with political aspirations (unless having been at the time an undercover journalist) to have involvement with so overt a fascist (KKK or neo-Nazi, let alone both in the same person) as David Duke.

4. It shows how committed the GOP leadership is to getting the racist vote -- and how incompetent it is in vetting prospects for committee chairs and Officers of the House.

5. It shows the contempt that GOP has for people who do not vote Republican.

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Doesn't LaRaza want the Southwest to leave the union and form the Republic of Aztlan or something like that?

That's a conservative talk radio conspiracy theory. Much of poor minority advocacy group = NAZIS is conservative talk radio conspiracy theory.

"My enemies must be just as racist as me" is a common line of thinking among racists.

You have just described psychological projection. An example: just about everything that Adolf Hitler said about the Jews was true -- about himself and his fellow Nazis, if not about Jews. I have heard a bank robber say that the banks are the biggest crooks of all.

It's hard for any group other than American blacks (except for African immigrants in recent times and their progeny, practically all American blacks have some Caucasoid ancestry) to have less cause for claim of ethnic purity than Mexican-Americans.  

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that allowed the US annexation of the American Southwest defined Mexicans and Mexican-Americans as "white" for legal purposes.

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If a Democrat spoke at a far-left Commie group...

Can we not pretend that's the same thing?

Maybe, but only if you can revive then hundred million people the Communists murdered in the 20th century.

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

An actual full-on political Communist organization a la the American Communist Party, yeah. They deserve just as much scorn as Neo-Nazis and fascists.

I don't think you'll find that, though, honestly. The closest thing to a Communist in Democratic politics is Bernie Sanders, and he's a Democratic Socialist. I wouldn't have been shocked to find out about some unhinged former Dem politicians like Pete Stark, but he's gone.

The closest you'd likely find is some state legislators or city councilors in far-left states. Maybe a Mayor or two. It would likely be enough to take them out of office, but it doesn't have the wide reaching effect of this.

Of course. In view of the body count involved with Marxism-Leninism and its offshoots (Trotsky was a monster within the Soviet system, so he and his followers cannot be exempted) anyone claiming to be a Marxist-Leninist* is suspect. But so are fascists.

David Duke, as a former Ku Kluxist and a neo-Nazi  whose repudiation of both his  Klan and Nazi past is weak even if he has tried to restyle himself as a new style of right-winger, is a fascist. He certainly was in 2002. Except for the ruling parties of some Axis countries, fascists fall short of the body counts of Marxist-Leninists. But so do Ted Bundy and John Gacy fall well short of Commie body counts, and nobody misses either of them.  

*The Communist Party of China has practically abandoned the economic principles of Marxism-Leninism while preserving the dictatorship intact.

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Compared to Trent Lott, it's shocking that this guy isn't being hung out to dry. Lott said something insensitive at a tribute to an elderly reformed bigot.

Trent Lott endorsed segregation. Unfortunately, we don't know what Scalise said to the White Supremacists. All we know is that he spoke to them. Do you seriously not see a difference? I don't condone speaking at White Supremacist rallies, but addressing these fools isn't exactly the same thing as endorsing their ideas. It's enough reason that I wouldn't want him in my party's leadership, but the Republican Party clearly feels differently.

A politician being introduced to new and controversial organization can do (or instruct staffers to do) some vetting of the organization.  Occasionally the organization is able to conceal some questionable purpose (such as being a Communist front) before one attends its function. So in such a case it is left-of-center... but of the 'wrong' part of the Left.   A sleazy club might organize an ad-hoc group that calls itself the "People of (insert name of locality) for the Defense of the Bill of Rights". The right under challenge proves to be the right of the owners to have waitresses show their bare breasts while taking orders for and serving overpriced liquor.

Oh, so it is not about protecting the right of a Vaclav Havel having a rough time with the authorities?

You can walk out on it. You can make your speech but make clear that you express that you have been snookered.

For an apolitical situation, suppose that you are a Professor of Economics at (insert name of institution). You are invited to make some pleasant speech at what proves to be a financial rip-off. The business model suggests that the only people who can Get Rich Quick are the organizers who fleece persons attending with basically a Ponzi scheme. Of course if you have any sense you will leave early... and notify the appropriate authorities. If you don't, then the supplementary income that you get will get you in trouble with the Dean of the Economics Department. You will lose your tenure and your job, and you will need a new source of income -- like working in a "stop and rob" gas station/convenience store even if you avoid prison time for participating in an illegal scheme.

...Everybody in Louisiana had to know what David Duke was for. Steve Scalise could have vetted a group called "Euro-American Unity and Rights Organization" and discovered who was involved in it. Instead the organization with David Duke vetted Scalise and found him a willing fellow-traveler.

Steve Scalise has showed himself a fellow-traveler of a fascist who left Nazism and the Klan only because he found how fruitless an association with despicable groups would hurt his ability to attract supporters and raise funds.

The Republican Party has enough potential leaders of the House, does it not? It could have found someone less controversial in his associations.