Responsible members of the Republican party need to speak out IMMEDIATELY against the conservative commentators in their own ranks using swine flu as an excuse to spew out racist hatred.
Radio, TV and newspaper personalities have jumped on the illness as a platform to attack "illegal aliens" for being responsible for carrying the disease across the Mexican border and infecting innocent Americans.
Despite the fact that there is no evidence to support such claims, talk radio hosts Michael Savage and Neal Boortz, radio and Fox TV personality Glenn Beck, and columnist Michelle Malkin are spreading them faster than the contagion.
"Illegal aliens are bringing in a deadly new flue strain. Make no mistake about it," blares Michael Savage.
"I've blogged for years about the spread of contagious diseases from around the world into the US as a result of uncontrolled immigration," writes Michelle Malkin.
"What happens if there's a rash of deaths in Mexico... and if you're a family in Mexico and people are dying and Americans are not, why wouldn't you flood this border?" announces Glenn Beck.
These loud mouths are also trying to convince their audiences that Islamic terrorists have somehow been able to do what has eluded scientists elsewhere in the world — concoct a deadly new flu virus — and then introduce it into the Mexican population.
"What better way to sneak a virus into this country than to give it to Mexicans....then spread a rumor there there are construction jobs here, and there they come," blathers Boortz.
Savage — "make no mistake about it" — believes that radical Islamic countries planted the virus in Mexico knowing that humans make the "perfect mules for bringing the strain into America."
OK, you ignoramuses: what you're saying is idiotic and racist on so many levels, it has to be called out.
#1. Why would we believe that Islamic countries or terrorist groups would have virologists capable of creating a new bio-terrorist flu? Didn't we fall for the Weapons of Mass Destruction line already, and start a war over it?
#2. If terror groups were capable of planting it among Mexicans — why wouldn't they be just as capable as planting it among Americans? If they couldn't get into the country, they'd just need to get a few of their own infected people to hang out in a foreign airport with flights going to the US.
#3. Since most of the Mexicans who are sick are in Mexico City, hundreds of miles from the US border, how exactly would they just pick up and "rush it?"
Furthermore, the first American cases of swine flu have turned up in New York City students who recently returned from a trip to Cancun, Mexico — they brought it with them. They're the human mules! American tourists returning from Mexico are at this point virtually all the other culprits spreading the new flu!
The fact that this new flu is just an excuse to spread racism becomes even more disgustingly apparent when Michael Savage blares to his audience that he will protect himself by having "no contact anywhere with illegal aliens and that starts with the restaurants." He calls people who dine out "morons who eat in restaurants with illegals all over the kitchen."
You could substitute the word "vermin" for "illegals" and he sounds frighteningly reminiscent of the Nazis talking about the Jews.
It's time for Republican National Committee chairman, Michael Steele, to speak out against this virulent strain of looniness. Immigrants aren't responsible for infecting Americans with swine flu — but racist commentators like these are spreading a far more destructive disease: hate!
For more on Racist Commentators follow Bonnie Fuller at twitter.com/bonniefuller.