Today's Orange County Register has a fascinating op-ed piece by K. Lloyd Billingsley, editorial director of the Pacific Research Institute. In it, he argues that the reason SanTana councilmember Busty Bustamante was recently axed from two state commissions wasn't because he's a liar or because his water-bra joke was crass but because California is politically correct and has a double standard. Billingsley brings up the case of former California Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, who infamously said “nigger” at a meeting in front of a bunch of African-Americans a couple of years ago. “Party affiliation doubtless has a lot to do with [how Busty and Bustamante were treated],” Billingsley writes.
Bull. The cases of Busty and Bustamante are nowhere close to similar. Bustamante committed his gaffe as a verbal slip of the tongue, and immediately apologized to his audience; Busty is still denying he ever made his crack, let alone apologize for anything. Bustamante's defenders were people on both sides of the political aisle who knew it was an unfortunate error; Busty's backers are people who conveniently ignore his lies and try to cast Busty's attackers as PC police run amok. More importantly, as the Liberal OC has pointed out, Busty said his remark while getting paid as a government employee; Bustamante wasn't working. Nice try, Lloyd, but no cigar.
Speaking of no cigar: Lloyd last year wrote an article trashing the Chicano student group MEChA and used me to make the claim that Mechistas are little better than Klan members. Per Billingsley's modus operandi, he completely misconstrued this article to make his point. Nice try!
