There is little to be surprised by in Fabian Núñez’ (D-Los Angeles) outlandish statements that those who questioned his expenses were motivated by race.

Núñez’ belated use of racial politics was an attempt to mask and avoid the truth: his poor judgment as a public servant.

In an interview this past week, with the Spanish-language program, Voz y Voto on Univision, Núñez began to label those who had questioned his expenses as "anti-Latino groups who don’t like Latinos and sought to utilize this as a weapon to stir up the anti-Mexican, anti-Latino rhetoric."

Nunez’ outrage stemmed from a Los Angeles Times story that showed his expenses including $47,412 on air travel, $5,149 for a ‘meeting’ at a wine seller in the Bordeaux region of France, a total of $2,562 for two ‘office expenses’ at Louis Vuitton. In addition, the Sacramento Bee noted that Núñez also spent “$3,199 stay at the hotel Parco in Rome; and $798.75 for cookies at Goodie Tuchews in Sacramento, California.”

This is Part 2 of that Interview:

Equally naïve was comments from his Latino Democratic colleagues who stated: “were not offended by the remarks made by the Speaker [Núñez].” Assemblyman Charles Calderon (D-Whittier) went a step further and added, “The Los Angeles Times has an anti-Latino basis.” The problem with Calderon’s assessment is that the story was first reported by the Sacramento Bee, followed by KFI, ABC News, and eight other media outlets.

(A big tip o’ the hat to Hector Barahas over at the CRP for his work on bringing this interview to light…)

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.