A band playing before dinner at a major Republican conference in Pennsylvania tonight reportedly played a song with anti-Semitic lyrics, prompting the conference to apologize. Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich are both scheduled to address the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference tomorrow. The event features other big conservatives like Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) and candidates for Senate.
Before a speech by GOP messaging guru Frank Luntz, a band called The Angry Mob Band played for the crowd. Pennsylvania political reporter Sy Snyder, reporting from the event, tweeted that a band at the conference sang the lyrics, “We’re fighting the corruption of the Jewish banks but when the Jews come to feed us, we always say thanks.” Snyder added that the band was satirizing the Occupy movement, but that hardly seems to justify the lyrics.
Indeed, about 15 minutes later, the official Twitter account of the conference tweeted an apology (screen grab) to Democratic operatives who had retweeed Snyder:
@Jane_Roh @MarkNicastre We apologize, it was lyrics the band that was playing pre-dinner sang in one of their songs.
— PA Leadership Conf. (@LeadPA) March 23, 2012
The event was streaming live here, so video will likely emerge and we will post it.
An email to the conference seeking confirmation was not immediately returned and the phone number listed on the website is no longer receiving calls.