An MSNBC panelist on Sunday told Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) to keep Rosa Parks’ “sacred name ... out of his lying mouth” after the accused fraudster compared himself to the iconic civil rights activist.
Santos, on a conservative podcast last week, invoked Parks to criticize a put-down by Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) earlier this year.
“The man goes to the State of the Union of the United States wearing a Ukraine lapel pin and tells me — a Latino gay man — that I shouldn’t sit in the front, that I should be in the back,” said Santos, a notorious liar who has pleaded not guilty to federal fraud and money-laundering charges.
“Well guess what? Rosa Parks didn’t sit in the back and neither am I going to sit in the back.”
Basil Smikle Jr., a political strategist and director of Hunter College’s public policy program, joined Boston Globe columnist Renée Graham in ripping Santos for the comments on Jonathan Capehart’s “The Sunday Show.”
“It’s idiotic, I can’t even begin to express how painful it is to listen to something like that,” Smikle said.
“But I would say that the danger in him making those comments and then, quite frankly, other Republican leaders make these similar comments, is that the intent with their audience is essentially to diminish the transformative power of civil rights leaders by essentially lifting up their political kleptocracy.”
Smikle added that Santos, who intends to run for reelection in 2024, stole his way into office with lies about his background. His comparison to Parks “diminishes the power of Black leaders,” he said.
Graham said Santos is right in noting that Parks didn’t sit in the back of the bus.
“You know what else she didn’t do? She didn’t lie about every aspect of her life,” Graham said. “So yes, he needs to keep the sacred name of Rosa Parks out of his lying mouth.”
H/T: Mediaite