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A few readers asked me why I hadn’t commented on MSNBC’s latest attack on the Tea Party as RAAAAACIST. Been there, done that. Over and over and over again. (The Dallas Tea Party posted an excellent rejoinder video here.)

The whole right-wingers-are-racist and minority-conservatives-are-race-traitors-wrapped-in-color thing is getting really, really old. Staler than last year’s Halloween candy, Diane Keaton’s wardrobe, and the Smothers Brothers’ show. It’s gotten so old that yet another white liberal bigmouth has now resurrected a smear I first heard in college: “Coconut.” (See here and here for my past musings on the vile bile minority conservatives have put up with over the years.)

Newsbusters reports:

MSNBC and CNBC contributor — and professed Charlie Crist admirer — Donny Deutsch used racially charged language on Monday night, smearing Republican senatorial candidate Marco Rubio as a “coconut.” Deutsch appeared on HLN’s Joy Behar Show and used the word, which both the New York Times and Urban Dictionary define as a “person who is tan on the outside” and “white on the inside.” Rubio is the son of Cuban exiles. [Audio available here.]

Deutsch employed the derogatory term while hitting politicians with no experience. He noted the success of such candidates and derided, “…You almost need that blank piece of paper. That’s the new model. Like, you know, this coconut Rubio down in Florida.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Brown on the outside, white on the inside. What is this? Sophomore year at Oberlin? Guess this bottom-feeder didn’t get Van Jones’ civility memo yet.

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On a related note: Jon Stewart mocks CPAC as a “festival of whites.” And I’m sure the studio audience and demographic breakdowns for his nightly shows are a veritable rainbow of fruit flavors.

On another related note: Website Lists Clarence Thomas, Robert Mugabe & DC Sniper as “Embarrassing” Blacks.

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Quick primer for those of you unfamiliar with the “coconut” insult:

If you are a conservative with Latino/Pacific Islander/Filipino heritage, you’re a coconut (brown on the outside, white on the inside).

If you are a conservative with Asian heritage, you’re a Twinkie or banana (yellow on the outside, white on the inside).

And if you are a conservative who happens to be black, you are an Oreo (black on the outside, white on the inside).

Okay, who is getting hungry?

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Update: My great blogger friend and fellow coconut Val Prieto at Babalu (who I had a pleasure to meet in person last week in D.C. at a blogger bash) has an update on the story — Donny Deutsch is now playing dumb. Not that it’s such a great stretch…

Here’s the direct link to Deutsch’s Tweet. Sure, of all the words to come out of his mouth, “coconut” just happened to roll off the bitter tongue…