ONCE A RACIST...

...always a racist?

Yes, it would seem. California Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante (D)refuses to renounce MEChA, the Chicano-supremacist organization that he belonged to as a student.

In fact, the Democrats seem to be a racist-admiring lot these days. Check out this post over at TAPPED:

FAREWELL TO FRITZ. Pundit Mark Shields gives Democratic senator Ernest Hollings a nice send-off in this column. Aside from Hollings' positions on intellectual property and technology, Tapped has always found a lot to admire about the guy. And like his fellow old-timer Robert Byrd, the senior Democratic senator from West Virginia, Hollings provided a voice of reason during the debates over Iraq. We're sorry to see him go.

Mark Shields, Dem-friendly pundit, admiring the man who raised the Confederate flag over South Carolina, while TAPPED praises him and the only sitting Senator to have been a member of the KKK. And don't forget California's unrepentant MECh-ista.

If the Republicans stepped into a pattern like this, pundits like Josh Marshall would froth at the mouth until every last Pach involved had either resigned or crawled over hot coals, slept on beds of nails and apologized until they'd done permanent damage to their vocal chords.

Just look at the Trent Lott fiasco of a few months back if you don't believe me. One stupid comment at an old man's birthday party cost him his SML post (rightfully so, I might add). Will Bustamante's MEChA past cost him anything?

Ha!

Here's more about Bustamante and MEChA. That the media is thus far letting him get away with praising a KKK-like organization is all the proof necessary to demonstrate liberal media bias.

(links via InstaPundit and Henry Hanks)

MORE: Just to check facts and all, I've gone poking around MEChA sites on the web. There are lots of them, just Google the name you'll see. MEChA is every bit as bad as Michelle Malkin alleges. From its constitution:

Chicano and Chicana students of Aztlán must take upon themselves the responsibilities to promote Chicanismo within the community, politicizing our Raza with an emphasis on indigenous consciousness to continue the struggle for the self-determination of the Chicano people for the purpose of liberating Aztlán.

"Self-determination of the Chicano people for the purpose of liberating Aztlan..." That's racial separatism with the aim of "liberating" a large portion of the United States and reuniting it with Mexico. And a man who supports this wants to be governor of part of that territory.

Section 2. The official symbol of this organization shall be the eagle with its wings spread, bearing a macahuittle in one claw and a dynamite stick in the other with the lighted fuse in its beak. The acronym MEChA shall be above the symbol with the phrase "La Union Hace La Fuerza" below.

Dynamite? That's rather terroristic, isn't it? Of course, if you want to separate the southwestern states from the rest of the US, violence is about the only way that's going to happen. Here's that symbol.

Bustamante refuses to denounce such an organization. The Democrats support him, and he is in good standing with the party.

Where's the media on this story?