I received the following email from the Maryland Democratic Party Chair Terry Lierman and it is truly shocking. Apparently Michael Zak, a speaker at a GOP dinner in Calvert County, said that “mastery over blacks has always been Democratic policy.” And get this: Lt. Governor Michael Steele, a likely candidate for Senate and favorite of the rightwing blogosphere, called Zak’s book “his favorite book!”
And so much for our SCLM. Howard Dean mispeaks a few times and they are all over him but Steele endorses a crazy speaker like Zak and it doesn’t get a peep of media coverage even by the major Maryland papers. Read the whole thing below and sign the petition. And also recommend the diary if you wish. Maybe then the conservative media will actually pay attention. I suppose it couldn’t hurt to write the Post’s ombudsman or letters to the editor too.
“Mastery over blacks has always been Democratic Policy. Before it was cotton. Now it is misery.”
-Michael Zak, Republican Keynote SpeakerShockingly, the man who delivered these offensive remarks last month to the Calvert County Republican Women’s Club is now idolized by Maryland’s senior Republican officials, including Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele.
A Republican Leader of the House of Delegates also defended propagandist Michael Zak, who made several other deceptive and divisive statements during his keynote address.
Zak Said Democrats Want to Keep Children Poor and Uneducated. “Democrats are socialists and we should call them socialists. It’s to the Democrats’ advantage children grow up poor and uneducated.”
[Calvert Recorder, 5/25/05]
Zak Says Democrats Want to Keep an Underclass of Poor Blacks. “Trapped in the role once filled by slaves before the war and then afterward by poor blacks during the Jim Crow era, an underclass today maintains the political and economic power of the Democratic Party elite and those in their employ, if indirectly, in the government bureaucracy.”
[Zak, Back to Basics for the Republican Party]
Zak Says Democrats are Unpatriotic and Don’t Respect the Constitution. “The unpatriotic tendencies of the Democratic Party did not begin recently.”
[Calvert Recorder, 5/25/05]
The common perception that Democrats are somehow less respectful of the Constitution, that they often revel in stretching and twisting it to suit their purposes, is valid.” [Zak, Back to Basics for the Republican Party]
It is not sufficient to dismiss this character as a crack pot.
Prominent Republicans are heralding Zak’s work and promulgating his rhetoric of hatred and fear in Maryland and around the country. Read for yourself on Zak’s website (http://www.republicanbasics.com/comments.html) how our own Republican Lt. Governor Michael Steele praised Zak’s extremist viewpoints — using the words “Phenomenal” and “Outstanding” to characterize Zak’s book, which Steele also says is “my favorite book”.
Now Steele wants to be Maryland’s next U.S. Senator.
I believe all Marylanders expect and deserve more from a U.S. Senator. More dignity and honesty, less divisiveness and misinformation. Michael Steele has failed an important test of character by aligning himself with Michael Zak’s dangerous, deceptive and racially divisive commentary.
Steele must immediately disavow Zak’s offensive, outrageous remarks and he should withdraw his endorsement of Zak’s inflammatory book.
If you agree with me, please sign our petition to Lieutenant Governor Steele today and demand that he openly reject Michael Zak’s shameful hate speech and fear tactics.
Click here to sign the petition.
Please, please, stand up proudly for your Democratic values and our Democratic Party. Stand up for the priciples we share: unity, inclusiveness and an abiding commitment to helping those in need.
Democrats in Maryland can take pride in what out Democratic Leaders are doing to fight for Maryland families. Whether it’s working for a fair, sensible plan for Social Security, raising the minimum wage, protecting health care access and affordability, ensuring adequate benefits for our veterans, or fighting for full funding for education, we have a positive agenda for moving our State and our nation forward.
Unfortunately, we live in a new era dominated by the politics of personal destruction. If we stand by and allow attacks on Democrats and our Party to go unanswered, the citizens of our State may come to believe these lies.
Please join our petition and tell Michael Steele that we expect much more from our leaders.
Thanks for your support!
Terry Lierman
Chair
Maryland Democratic Party