Playing the Race Card in Gonzales Nomination

Re “Democrats Extend Debate on Gonzales,” Feb. 2: As I write this, one Republican senator after another is playing the “Hispanic race card” on the Senate floor while debating the Alberto Gonzales nomination for attorney general. A week ago they did the same with the African American heritage of Condoleezza Rice.

If these Republican senators truly practice what they preach, they should make public the number of African Americans and Hispanics in key positions on their own Senate staffs. Since many Republican senators don’t publish the names of their primary and support staffs on their websites, they conceal from the public how many minorities they actually employ.

Interestingly, most of these fraudulent crusaders for equality have never supported affirmative action. Perhaps if they had, Gonzales’ success wouldn’t be an anomaly.

Linda Milazzo

West Hills

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The bruising treatment that liberal Democrats have dealt nominees Rice and Gonzales takes a little getting used to. These two have taken verbal brickbats over their alleged inability to think for themselves. In the bad old days it was right-wingers, and not liberals, who said such things. Sen. Joseph Biden, in his interrogation of Gonzales, actually called him “buddy boy.” Perhaps Biden has forgotten, if he ever knew, that “boy” was a favorite expression of racists when they addressed people they considered inferior because of their race. Tough political infighting is one thing -- resorting to demeaning racial epithets is quite another.

Manuel H. Rodriguez

Burbank