[Above, Ali Velshi explains to Katy Tur that he was willing to give Cindy Hyde-Smith a chance to explain or retract the implications of her racist "public hanging" statement, but then she doubled down on it. Katy Tur replied that "there are so many GOP political officials defaulting to something racist." -eds]

Sen. Cindy "hang 'em in public where I can see from the front row" Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.). She seems nice!

Politico aka Tiger Beat on the Potomac (thanks Charlie Pierce!) shows us again why most Americans think that Republicans are racist:

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), running for election against an African-American man [Ed. – Democrat Mike Espy, an African-American former congressman and agriculture secretary–TG], joked in a video posted online that if she were invited by one of her supporters to a “public hanging,” she would be in “the front row.”

The clip was published on Twitter Sunday by a Mississippi blogger, who said Hyde-Smith was campaigning with a cattle rancher when she made the comment.

“If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row,” Hyde-Smith said. There was no further context for the remark immediately available.

And now, for the inevitable non-apology:

“In a comment on Nov. 2, I referred to accepting an invitation to a speaking engagement. In referencing the one who invited me, I used an exaggerated expression of regard, and any attempt to turn this into a negative connotation is ridiculous,” Hyde-Smith said.

So you see, you haters are the REAL RACISTS for suggesting that the very white Republican from Mississippi, Cindy Hyde-Smith when joking about a lynching was being anything other than humorous.

Hyde-Smith is running for the US Senate; there is going to be a run-off between herself and Espy Nov. 27.

crossposted from Mock Paper Scissors