Newt apologizes for "ghetto" remark... [VIDEO]

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 10:35 AM on April 6, 2007.

Earlier this week Newt Gingrich made some idiotic remarks about "the language of the ghetto," i.e.: Spanish. He then tried to take it back with a hilarious flurry of double-talk and BS, referring to Jewish ghettos or ghettos generically...

Now, with this phonetically-read semi-apology in Spanish, the Newt tries to make good. Cenk writes:

How do you not love this? Are any of the Republicans who hate "the illegals" going to vote for him after this? Yeah, yeah, I know they claim it's not about them being Mexican, but about them being illegal. Get real, the Tom Tancredo crowd that watches this video will never consider voting for Gingrich again.

It reminds me of something funny. Well, more than one thing, but one nugget of Hollywood apocrypha in particular. I've heard tell that Orson Welles, forced by his studio to include Charlton Heston as Ramon Miguel Vargas in Touch of Evil, re-wrote his own character's dialogue to include references to Heston's pasty complexion and european features: "Funny, you don't look like a Mexican..."

Best part of the whole film (aside from the uncut opening shot and Marlene Dietrich's offer of stew to a worn out Welles...): A hysterical Vargas (Heston), having lost his wife to a gang of toughs, shouting: Don-day esss-tahh me ess-pose-uh? Don-day esss-TAHH me ess-pose-uh...

¡En Espanol!&topic=politics">

Tagged as: immigration, latinos, newt gingrich, spanish

Evan Derkacz is an AlterNet editor. He writes and edits PEEK, the blog of blogs.