Tancredo: La Raza is "Latino KKK"

Anti-illegal-immigration crusader and former Colorado Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo was on CNN this afternoon whacking Sonia Sotomayor for her association with the National Council of La Raza, which was listed in a 2000 American Bar Association bio of the judge.

"If you belong to an organization called La Raza, in this case ... which is from my point of of view any way ... nothing more than a ... Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses. If you belong to something like that in a way that's going to convince me and a lot of other people that it's got nothing to do with race. Even though the logo of La Raza is "All for the race. Nothing for the rest." What does that tell you?

CNN's Rick Sanchez seemed flabbergasted: "All right. We're not talking about — we're not talking about La Raza—"

La Raza is not well-liked by conservatives for its stances on immigration — and has been accused of Hispanic separatism over the years.

But it is also one of the nation's oldest mainstream Hispanic advocacy groups, with 300 neighborhood affiliates and corporate sponsorship that includes Citigroup.

And it has not been implicated in a 150-year history of lynchings, night rides, voter registration obstruction or enforcement — at the barrel of a gun — of Jim Crow segregation laws.

Glenn Thrush is senior staff writer at Politico Magazine.