Kerry Repudiates St. Petersburg Dems

Kerry Repudiates St. Petersburg Dems

FINALLY!

I am enheartened to hear that a major Dem has actively denounced someone from their party who made a statement which, if it had been uttered by a conservative, would have been both considered hate speech AND immediately decried by conservatives around the nation.

Keep it up conservatives! (Denouncing "our own" when they do something wrong, that is.) The Dems just may be learning something by osmosis!

USATODAY.com - St. Petersburg Democratic club ad says 'pull trigger' on Rumsfeld

MIAMI (AP) — Florida Republicans are crying foul after a St. Petersburg Democratic club placed a full-page ad in a weekly newspaper, saying Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld should be "put up against a wall" and someone should "pull the trigger."

The ad, appearing in last Thursday's edition of the Gabber, a weekly paper covering the Pinellas County community of Gulfport, included a lengthy criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq and then singled out Rumsfeld.

"And then there's Rumsfeld who said of Iraq 'We have our good days and our bad days.' We should put this S.O.B. up against a wall and say 'This is one of our bad days,' and pull the trigger," the ad read under a banner "St. Petersburg Democratic Club." . . .

Mark Kornblau, a Kerry campaign spokesman, said the club was not working for their campaign "in any official capacity" and called for an apology.

"It is outrageous and does not in any way reflect the position of our campaign. We hope that those responsible will retract the statement, apologize for it and move on to more productive pursuits," Kornblau said.

Maddox said in a statement that the ad was "reprehensible and in poor taste" and urged its immediate removal and a formal apology.

State party spokeswoman Allie Merzer said the group is a social club chartered by the state Democratic party but does not receive funds from the state party and did not consult party before the ad was placed. She said the state party was reviewing the club's charter membership.