Honda: Senator Graham's Inappropriate "Kamikaze" Remarks on Pelosi's Health Care Efforts

[Tx4obama]

Representative's Mike Honda's article at HuffPo...

Excerpt:

Yesterday, Senator Lindsey Graham made comments about Speaker Pelosi's efforts to galvanize support for health care reform, stating that she has Democratic Members "liquored up on sake" to make a "suicide run" to pass reform.

As a Japanese American who was interned along with my family during World War II, I am personally disheartened that Senator Graham chose to use racially tinged rhetoric to express his opposition to health care reform. There is a way to engage in healthy debate without ostracizing the 16.2 million AAPIs in this country, who are an important part of this democracy and health care reform. Many face barriers to quality health care, such as the high cost of health care, racial and ethnic health disparities, cultural isolation, and language barriers, to name a few.

Full article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-mike-honda/senator-grahams-kamikaze_b_502545.html

[timeforpeace]

1. For goodness sake (no pun intended). But it is political suicide or they would be voting yea or nay.

[Gaedel]

2. Kamikaze as a term has entered the Enmglish language

Honda:
"As a Japanese American who was interned along with my family during World War II, I am personally disheartened that Senator Graham chose to use racially tinged rhetoric to express his opposition to health care reform. There is a way to engage in healthy debate without ostracizing the 16.2 million AAPIs in this country, who are an important part of this democracy and health care reform. Many face barriers to quality health care, such as the high cost of health care, racial and ethnic health disparities, cultural isolation, and language barriers, to name a few."



You can certainly disagree with Sen Graham's position and his characterization of Speaker Pelosi's efforts on health care.

Using the term "Kamikaze" is no more a racially-tinged slur on Asian-Americans than using the term "Berserk" to characterize an action is a slur on Scandinavian-Americans.

[DFLforever]

3. It has, but why give up a perfectly good opportunity to bash

Lindsay Graham for his nasty metaphors.

He also referred to sake and the Speaker's suicide mission so he was well invested in his 'Japanese theme'.