Viva Tancredo!

The "crazy people in room doing crazy things" article is a hackneyed one, sure, and I already linked a classic of the genre yesterday, but this Orange County Weekly write-up of a Tom Tancredo rally at the Nixon Library contains some high-grade kookery.

Not to be outdone, the African-American community turns out two speakers of its own, Ted Hayes and Terry Anderson. Anderson warms up the crowd with a joke that involves killing Hillary Clinton, sending hat-wearing older ladies into red-faced spasms of laughter.

Hayes says illegal immigrants are actually responsible for black poverty. "Illegal immigration is the greatest threat to black people since slavery," he says, prompting a standing ovation. Then he starts a chant of "These colors don't run! These colors don't run!"

Alright, Ted Hayes! You might remember Hayes, the surly operator of the "Dome Village" homeless shelter, from Peter Bagge's cartoon on the "brown peril." Hayes' entry into the anti-immigration movement seemed to portend a coming white-black alliance against Mexican immigration, but it only portended this if you were really stupid.

Tancredo closes out the emotional night by reminding the audience that hunting down all illegal immigrants, sending them home, and building a 2,000-mile wall between us and Mexico is our calling, much like a previous generation "saved the world" during World War II. "Next, we build a wall along the Canadian border," he proposes to thunderous applause.

Wow. I thought he was making a gaffe when he originally proposed that in the pages of Marie Claire. He wasn't.