AP: Md. Rep., Dem Candidate Cardin Fires Staffer Over Race Comment

[DeepModem Mom]

Md. Rep. Fires Staffer Over Race Comment
Sep 16
By BRIAN WITTE
Associated Press Writer

BALTIMORE -- Rep. Benjamin Cardin has fired a campaign staffer who posted racially charged comments against his opponent on the Internet, the congressman's campaign said Saturday.

The staffer's blog includes references to Oreo cookies. Cardin's opponent, Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, who is black, has said people threw Oreos at him during a 2002 debate as a slight directed at his race and political views....

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"I am deeply offended and disgusted by the blog's racial and anti- Semitic overtones," the 10-term congressman said. "The staff person responsible was promptly dismissed and will have nothing to do with my campaign."...

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The woman was "a junior staffer" who worked for the campaign for about a month, said Cardin spokesman Oren Shur....A blog posting Aug. 25 refers to a stack of Oreo cookies "looming in the back of one of the campaign pantries" and how staffers have to "surreptitiously glance around" before eating them....

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The blog also contains an entry describing Cardin's friends as "large men with strong, loud voices and Jewish noses."...

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/09/16/D8K6BS8GA.html

[Richard Steele]

1. Self-delete; (I should read things more closely before responding.) D'OH!

[Kagemusha]

2. Well the Oreo reference I can understand for a simple reason.

Given that Oreos were thrown at the candidate in the past, damn right the staffers surreptitiously glance around before eating them. It's a sensitive topic, the type that might get someone in trouble if they MENTION IT ON THEIR BLOG...

Just saying.

[TheDebbieDee]

5. This "Oreo harrassment" incident

was allegedly debunked by Snopes.com

[still_one]

7. The baltimore sun reported it today

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/politics/bal-cardin091606,0,6058169.story?coll=bal-local-headlines

where is the linke to snopes.com on this story?

[Kagemusha]

13. Hey, if even the allegation is a sensitive topic, still.

People should know better than to feed an incorrect story that's injurious to the guy paying your salary.

[Bitwit1234]

3. Staffer

This does not sound like a legimate staffer. Wonder if it is a setup to cause trouble. And it really frosts you about the oreo cookies. When steele was at Morgan State talking to the black students he said they threw oreos. The students have said over and over it was a lie, no one, absolutely no one threw cookies of any kind. He used it as a stunt to gain him press and I guess he will lie about it again. Hopefully in Baltimore and Maryland the media reports the truth and does kiss bush ass they way it does every place else.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

20. Smells like a thug was planted as a "junior staffer" to me.

I call B.S.

[Ignacio Upton]

4. I wonder if she was one of those people who threw Oreo cookies at Steele?

But wait, that never even happened! (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/11/14/115825/15)

[still_one]

8. so I guess you are saying the baltimore sun is wrong?

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/politics/bal-cardin091606,0,6058169.story?coll=bal-local-headlines

[Ignacio Upton]

9. The Janitor at the debate said he didn't find any oreo cookies

n/t.

[still_one]

10. so are you saying Cardin did not fire a staffer?

[Ignacio Upton]

11. I'm not saying that

I'm just pointing out that the 2002 oreo incident was bullshit. I'm glad that Cardin fired her, because her comments were both racist (the oreo comment about Steele) and anti-semitic (about Cardin's friends, and indrectly attacking Cardin, who's Jewish himself.)

[still_one]

12. I guess there are two events, one that happened a year ago

which was a lie, or misrepresentation about a racial slur, and an event that happened in the last few days which concerns comments made on a blog by a staffer. Appreciate the clarification

[JI7]

6. if it was a Republican staffer they wouldn't be fired

look at how McCain and Bush partied it up with Macaca after what he did.

[qanda]

14. She only worked for the campaign for about a month

It really makes one wonder where she came from.

[brentspeak]

15. For Pete's sake, Cardin's office should tell us the junior staffer's name

So that 1) no other Democratic politician will inadvertantly get burned by having her on the staff; and 2) to discover whether or not she really was some freeper who joined Cardin's campaign just to discredit it.

[cigsandcoffee]

16. Jewish noses?

I don't understand the significance of this.

[tritsofme]

17. I suppose its a blessed thing you've never heard of slurs like these

but for hundreds of years caricatures of Jews have been portrayed with exaggerated "hooked" noses.

[Ignacio Upton]

18. A lot of Jewish people have hooked noses...

...But so do many ethnic groups near the Mediterranean, including Sicilians and North Africans. Arabs, Ethiopians, and Somalis also have similarly-shaped noses. And if you go to parts of northern Europe like in France or Britain you'll find people with somewhat hooked noses, as they might have some Roman ancestry.
That said, the hooked-nose term is offensive.

[cigsandcoffee]

19. I understand the slur but not the point. n/t

[davidinalameda]

21. I'm ususally not one to go in for conspiracy theories

but there's something suspicious about this

I think she was a plant