Rep. Hastings Says Palin “Don’t Care” About Jews, Blacks

Rallying on behalf of Barack Obama, a Florida congressman impeached as a federal judge for perjury and bribery suggested that Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is a racist anti Semite.

Democrat Alcee Hastings, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus who co chaired Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential campaign, told a Washington D.C. crowd that the Alaska governor “don’t care too much what they do with Jews and blacks.”

Referring to Palin’s support of gun rights and fondness of hunting, the disgraced federal judge said that “anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks.” He further pointed out that, like Jews, blacks care about affordable health care, energy independence and the separation of church and state. Palin, he suggested, does not.

In an apparent effort to perhaps eject the veteran lawmakers’ foot out of his mouth, a spokesman explained that Hastings was simply trying to argue that Palin is an extremely conservative woman who is out of touch with mainstream America.

Hastings has the dubious honor of being one of only six federal judges to be removed from office through impeachment for perjury and conspiracy to obtain a bribe. The judge turned politician was embroiled in a 1983 scandal involving the solicitation of a $150,000 bribe in return for favorable treatment for defendants in a racketeering case before him.

Hastings repeatedly lied under oath at his criminal trial and forged letters in an effort to get acquitted. In 1988 the Democratic-run House voted overwhelmingly (413-3) to impeach Hastings who had been appointed to the federal bench in the Southern District of Florida by Jimmy Carter. The Democratic-run Senate subsequently removed Hastings from the bench. He has represented south Florida’s 23rd District in the House since 1993.