More Context

Not that he needs my help defending himself, but Red Maryland contributor Rick Vatz, who was a target of Daivd Paulson’s pusillanimous smear, rightly puts Paulson’s attack in proper context.

Laura Vozzella’s column “Can’t we just get along?” (June 22) describes Democratic Party spokesman David Paulson’s false suggestion of racial insensitivity in the hosts’ reactions to a call from an African-American listener on the Ehrlichs’ weekly radio show on WBAL.

Such a claim by a member of the state Democratic hierarchy, which has exhibited overt, ugly and destructive racism over the last six years, is hypocrisy at its worst.

In addition to the examples of Democratic insensitivity cited in Ms. Vozzella’s column by former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.’s spokesman, Henry Fawell – of Rep. Steny
H. Hoyer and state Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller’s use of racial epithets against former Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele – there was the silence among most Democratic office-holders when Mr. Steele was called “Simple Sambo” on a liberal blog, there was state Sen. Lisa A. Gladden’s justifying the use of ugly racial slurs against Mr. Steele by arguing that “party trumps race,” and there was Democratic Del. Salima S. Marriott’s suggestion that comparisons of Mr. Steele to a slave or an Oreo cookie were deserved because he’s a conservative.

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The silence about or condoning of such racial attacks by many Democrats conveys the message that vile racial rhetorical assaults are acceptable to Democrats in Maryland if they are made about an African-American conservative.

Richard E. Vatz Towson The writer is a professor of rhetoric at Towson University who was a panelist on the radio show discussed in Ms. Vozzella’s column.