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On his first night back from vacation over the holidays, Stephen Colbert came to the defense of his hero, "Papa Bear" O'Reilly, better known as Bill-O around here, for his remarks about Asian-Americans on The Factor last week.

Somebody had to stick up for him after that mean old Ed Schultz was picking on him.

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Chris Hayes and his Story of the Week on the predicament for Republican party and conservatives who are "creating their own electoral enemies" with "its visceral appeal to anxieties and fears of white Christians."

After listening to Republicans discussing their some of their losses after this last election, I'd say they're more than aware that they've got a problem, but are unwilling to admit they need to do more than put a little nicer window dressing on their policies. And I don't see them giving up on the fearmongering any time soon. It's all they've got left.

White identity politics doomed 2012 Republican effort:

Of all the surprising and revealing results from Tuesday night, there is one relatively small bit of exit polling data that I think is the key to understanding the entire evening.

You’ve probably heard by now that Mitt Romney won white voters by a sizable margin, while Barack Obama ran up huge margins among African-Americans and Latinos.

In fact, he won Latinos by 71% to 27%, an even wider margin than in 2008 when he won them 67% to 31%. But almost no one has noticed what to me is the most shocking result, and that’s how the two candidates did with Asian-American voters.

Now, Asian-Americans made up a very small sliver of the electorate, just 3%, so a presidential candidate’s performance within that group doesn’t necessarily carry with it massive electoral consequences.

But Asian-Americans are also, according to the latest census, the fastest growing racial sub category in America. In fact, the census projects that by mid-century they will make up 9% of the country. And as it happens, Asian-Americans are also the nation’s highest earning ethnicity, with median incomes even higher than those of whites.

So you might have predicted that Mitt Romney would do well with them, since he won among voters making more than $100,000 a year.

But he did not. He got creamed, losing Asian-American voters 73% to 26%. This is a shocking result not only because just 20 years ago George HW Bush carried Asian-Americans comfortably, or because the margin is so wide,but because the entire category of Asian-American is so obviously a construction there’s little reason to suspect members of the group would vote with each other in any discernible pattern.

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From TPM -- Hoekstra Defends Ad: ‘There’s Nothing In Here That Has A Racial Tint At All’:

Former Rep. Pete Hoesktra (R-MI) appeared Monday afternoon on Fox News, to defend his controversial TV ad by his Senate campaign, which played in Michigan during the Super Bowl — and featured an Asian-American actress speaking in broken English, to thank incumbent Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow for spending and borrowing money from China.

“Your economy get very weak,” the woman said in the ad. “Ours get very good. We take your jobs.”

Megyn Kelly asked Hoekstra about objections from Asian-American groups, who say the Hoekstra campaign is stirring up anti-Asian sentiments and stereotypes. But Hoekstra stood firm.

“The only group of people that this ad is ‘anti-’ — its anti-Debbie Stabenow, it’s anti-Barack Obama, the spending policies of the liberal left. You’ll notice that the ad points to the opportunities that America’s dumb economic policies — deficit spending, trillion dollars of deficits, trillions and trillions of debt — it creates the opportunities for countries like China and others to take advantage of our weakness. it weakens the U.S. economy, and it strengthens our competitors.

Kelly then asked about objections from the ad’s opponents, who have said that the ad’s use of broken English stirred up old-time stereotypes about a lack of intelligence in other races.

“Well It’s not a stereotype at all. This is a — you know, through the creative — this is a young woman in China who is speaking English. That’s quite an achievement,” said Hoekstra. “You know, what these folks and what others are angry about, they’re angry about the message, that we are actually confronting the Democrats and Debbie Stabenow on the failed policies that have resulted in eight and a half, nine percent unemployment in the United States. Read on...

And here's more from Marcy Wheeler -- Pete Hoekstra Mocks His Asian-American Neighbors:

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