Mediaite-Va. GOP Head Compares Black Wefare Recipients To Dogs

Virginia Beach GOP Chairman David Bartholomew resigns after comparing Black welfare recipients to "dogs": Mediaite

(Story reported by Brea Tremblay for Mediaite)

Talking Points Memo is reporting that on March 15th 2010 that Virgina Beach GOP Chairman David Bartholomew sent an email with the subject line “my dog.” The email went public on Tuesday and Bartholomew resigned his post on Wednesday. The contents of the email were as follows:

MY DOG
I went down this morning to sign up my Dog for welfare.
At first the lady said, “Dogs are not eligible to draw welfare”.
So I explained to her that my Dog is black, unemployed, lazy, can’t speak English and has no frigging clue who his Daddy is.
So she looked in her policy book to see what it takes to qualify…
My Dog gets his first check Friday.
Is this a great country or what?

Politicians from both sides of the aisle are weighing in on the controversy. Representative Glenn Nye, a Democrat who represents Virgina Beach, denounced the email, saying, “This type of racist behavior has no place in politics.” Nye’s Republican opponent Scott Rigell agreed, calling the email “reprehensible” and in stark contrast to the core values of the Republican Party, the party of Lincoln, and my personal belief in a colorblind society.”

Bartholomew does have one defender: Second District GOP chair Gary Byler, who told the Virginian-Pilot that Bartholomew is not a racist and forwarded the email without reading the contents when “he was first getting familiar with the Internet.”

(Click here to read the full story on the Mediaite website.)