Rand Paul and other Republican leaders back away from Bundy

By Jaime Fuller, WashPost, Updated: April 24 at 1:35 pm

Since Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy's remarks to the New York Times — they began, “I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro" — many Republicans who previously expressed admiration and support for his standoff with the Bureau of Land Management have been mostly silent. (Bundy has not paid grazing fees for his cattle, which number into the hundreds and have been on federal land illegally, for more than two decades.)

However, more prominent Republican leaders who have made public and laudatory statements about Bundy have begun to backtrack. Expect the rest — if they want to keep their political careers — to follow.

Here's what Bundy said, according to New York Times reporter Adam Nagourney:

“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” he said. Mr. Bundy recalled driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, “and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do."

(More here.)