Demagogue

By way of ThinkProgress, apparently Maryland's republican Governor Robert Ehrlich recently held a $100,000 fund-raiser at a *white's only* country club. But according to Ehrlich there isn't anything wrong with that.

I don’t know what their membership is, and guess what? It’s not my business…It’s a private club, which we rented.

Excuse me? That means that your campaign gave money to a white's only country club? And when you found out the only thing you can say is that's it's "all a bunch of nothing"?

Even more astonishing is that Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, who is a prominent African-American republican with his eye on the Senate, had a similar reaction as well.

I don’t know that much about the club, the membership, nor do I care, quite frankly, because I don’t play golf. It’s not an issue with me.

Ehrich also claims that Democrats have held fund-raisers there as well, but when pressed he refused to give up any names. Frankly, that's beside the point. Once something like this is pointed out the obvious, decent thing to do is to say that you didn't know and won't use that venue again. Case closed. But to make a stink out of it, get your drawers in a twist and repeatedly say it's no big deal, and then on top of that you have your black lt. governor say the same?

Governor Ehrlich, do you know what century you're in? C'mon, you're a republican governor running for re-election in a solidly blue state and there are several high-profile African-Americans hot to take your job-- do you really think this defense strategy is wise? It's pretty obvious to me you risk more by saying that it's no big deal than by saying you're sorry, you didn't know, and be done with it.