You would think Pelosi would hire smarter aides. :>)
By Jerry Kammer
Copley News Service
August 26, 2003
WASHINGTON - When Victor Davis Hansen, a scholar of ancient Rome and Greece and a professor at California State University Fresno, described himself as "a classicist" at a Capitol Hill briefing last week, a staffer for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi took offense.
Frederico de Jesus, a native of Puerto Rico who handles Hispanic press for Pelosi, apparently thought Hansen had acknowledged a "classist" bias against immigrants, according to congressional staffers and Greg Krikorian, who sponsored the briefing as director of the Center for Immigration Studies.
Hansen and several others in attendance said de Jesus then attacked Hansen and his book "Mexifornia." The book argues that mass illegal immigration, coupled with the loss of traditional ways of assimilating newcomers into U.S. culture, has produced a social and civic debacle in California.
According to congressional staffers and Krikorian, de Jesus accused Hansen of "racism" and "xenophobia" and repeatedly interrupted him before stalking out of the room.
De Jesus did not respond to calls and e-mails seeking comment.
Jennifer Crider, a spokeswoman for Rep. Pelosi, D-San Francisco, said, "A staffer thought a racially insensitive remark was made. He objected and left the briefing." Crider said de Jesus "spoke for himself," not for Pelosi.
"It was a tirade, and it was an embarrassing show of ignorance," said Krikorian, whose center favors tighter limits on immigration.
Hansen, a Hoover Institution scholar and military historian whose conservative views about the issues underlying Sept. 11 have caught the eye of Washington officials, said the behavior of Pelosi's aide shows how difficult it is to have a dispassionate discussion about immigration.
Find this article at:
signonsandiego.com |
