Very white Democrat Beto O'Rourke had a rally in El Paso this weekend, spawning another round of the media's latest favorite hobby: fawning over Beto O'Rourke.
In the case of the Associated Press, it seems the exuberance overwhelmed reality, and 'Beto' was identified as a "native" Spanish-speaker in an article that was of course syndicated to papers and websites across the country.
It's a little thing, in a way. A mere typot ... err, typo.
But in another more important way, it's lavishly Freudian. O'Rourke wants to be the liberal "no wall" border Democrat from a scrappy bi-national community. But being a border Texan isn't quite enough authenticity for our friends across the aisle, and his deep whiteness, which shines through in everything from his exhausting and spastic arm-waving speaking style to his bizarre, furry-lite musical past is a barrier to that authenticity.
Speaking at length in Spanish at an El Paso rally can help fight that image, and that's what he did, but to such great effect for the thirsty AP reporter that they conferred upon him the rank of native speaker.
Newsbusters has preserved a screenshot of the original text, which has of course since been updated.
Naturally, even sans Spanish first, the article is more than glowing.
Bounding onto a makeshift El Paso stage in a blue button-down shirt to The Clash's "Clampdown," O'Rourke declared: "We are safe, not despite the fact that we are a city of immigrants and asylum seekers. We are safe because we are a city of immigrants and asylum seekers."
Descriptions of "energetic" Beto "bounding" onto things, rhapsodic reflections on his clothing and music choices, and effusive assurances of his popularity and fame, often said directly to him, are so commonplace in reporting on the guy who lost to Ted Cruz that it's practically its own genre of media.
But now it's moving into wishcasting diversity onto him.
For the record, white guy O'Rourke's mother tongue is English, as is the case for most American-born O'Rourkes.
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