Friday, January 27, 2012

Speaking the Language of the Ghettos

There was much concern about Romney's spanish radio ad making a dig at Gingrich's use of the phrase "language of the ghetto." CNN fact checked it during the debate, but they didn't complete the fact checking. Obviously this warrants further investigation and several articles were quick to point out what is going on.

Here is the back and forth at the debate:

First, I want to state how disappointed I am that Romney does not, in fact, approve the ad spots that he says he approves. But I suspect he is not alone in this. All of the politicians will record that sound bite once and it gets tagged onto the end of all their commercials. So, it's a wash... He does it, they all do it, what are you going to do about it.

Back to the topic at hand. Here is the radio spot in question:


The translation of the part in question is: "And Reagan definitely would have never offended us, Hispanics, as Gingrich did by saying that Spanish is the language of the ghetto." (H/T Race42012)

Did Gingrich say "Spanish is the language of the ghettos"? No, what he did say was "We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country so that they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of the ghetto." (emphasis added, transcribed from video) This was in 2007.

But here is the VERY interesting thing, he didn't say languages, he said language. The next day, after he made that remark, he apologized for the use of "language of the ghetto." But did he apologize in English? French? German? Japanese? Chinese? Tagalog? Ebonics? No, he apologized in Spanish! Even if Newt Gingrich did not literally say "Spanish is the language of the ghetto", he implied it.


Newt Gingrich does this kind of thing over and over. And it is an embarrassment to our party...


I do believe Romney and his ad are safe on the Fact Check Meter.

8 comments:

Terrye said...

This is so typical Gingrich..say something and then act as if some other named Gingrich said it and he is just being unjustly accused.

To be honest, I am not sure the candidates actually do personally approve all the ads..maybe they should, but sometimes when an ad is brought up I get the feeling they are not always sure what is in it.

Anonymous said...

A Romney aide tweeted into CNN gal after debate and said they had over 80 ads.........it's not realistic they've seen them all.

BUT........whatever, I agree, w/Machtyn........he essentially said that. Others reported it first, not Mitt, so Newt needs to be a big boy. The media COULD vet, but since they don't, the candidates have to.

Good post!!

ccr

nkmom said...

Learning a couple of days ago that Gingrich said this was very offensive to me, a Mexican-American. While I was so glad that Romney did awesome overall last night, I was disappointed that he was not stronger on this issue as it is one that is very insulting to the Hispanic community (pleasantly surprised it was even brought up by the moderator). I'm so glad he has the ad out, just wish he'd been able to "own" it better.

Anonymous said...

Snewty talks so much that he likely can't remember half of what he says, he needs to have a videographer follow him all the time and review the tape every night, maybe he then might learn that it is better to keep his mouth shut sometimes.
Says Newt Gingrich said "Spanish is the language of the ghetto. "http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2012/jan/25/mitt-romney/spanish-language-ad-says-newt-gingrich-said-spanis/

Machtyn said...

nkmom: I'm confused. I thought Romney was pretty strong on the topic. He's not going to send the secret police to deport illegal immigrants, but he will hold businesses accountable for being magnets for illegal activity. The Republican Party is for legal immigration.

The illegal immigrants have an opportunity to get in line. It is difficult to become a US citizen, but it is not impossible.


By the way, I slightly updated the article. I've added a link to Politifact to the words "Fact Check Meter".

http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2012/jan/25/mitt-romney/spanish-language-ad-says-newt-gingrich-said-spanis/

nkmom said...

Machtyn, I like Romney's position on immigration just fine, I was talking more about how he appeared in reaction to the question ... didn't seem to know about the ad, then seemed to have been "caught" when the moderator returned with the fact that it was his ad. Given that he is competing in a heavily Hispanic market, I wish he'd been better prepared to know what Spanish ads he has out there, so that when asked about it he could have said something like, "You bet that's my ad, I thought Hispanics would like to know how Mr. Gingrich characterizes their communities!"

Anonymous said...

Ok so Romney ad should have been that Gingrich said ALL languages not just spanish, are the language of the ghettos

Anonymous said...

politifact verified the ad was correct. Gingrich lied again.