When life and work collide...

Earlier this year one of my clients, the Center for Independent Media, a non-profit organization that operates a network of online political news sites, broke a bizarre story about an aide to former Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo pleading guilty to "karate chopping" an African American woman in the head and calling her a racial epithet. The story was particularly interesting at the time given Tancredo's contemperaneous allegation that then-Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor was racist.

Fast forward to today. Debbie and I took a full-day boat tour out to Isla Tortuga in the Gulf of Nicoya, replete with snorkeling, sunbathing, and a delicious BBQ fish lunch on the beach. On the boat ride out to the island I was talking to the guy next to me, who I recognized from our hotel, and learned that he runs a small political consulting shop in Virginia. A funny enough coincidence, I thought. Although I hesitated, I asked whether he worked for Democrats or Republicans, and he said Republicans. Fine, no problem. We're in Costa Rica, I'm on a 9-month vacation, I can deal. We talked a bit about my work and he asked what kind of clients I worked for. I, in turn, asked the same. When he mentioned Tom Tancredo as a former client (and Pat Buchanan as a current one), it suddenly clicked that this might in fact be the karate chop guy. When I learned his name was Marcus, I was even more certain, as he began to look familiar to me and the name definitely sounded familiar. So, sure enough, we get off the boat, get back to the hotel, open up our Netbook, Google "Tancredo aide karate" and find that we spent the afternoon and are sharing a hotel with a seriously anti-immigration conservative activist. Faaantastic.

Boy vacation is interesting!