Yes, you read that right. Regular followers of my diaries know that I've been pushing hard on behalf of Lance Enderle in MI-08 (and yes, please donate to him; he doesn't need gobs of dough, but he does need some cash to have a shot at taking out Mike Rogers in these final weeks).
Today, however, I'd like to focus on neighboring MI-09, where freshman incumbent Democrat Gary Peters is defending himself against tea partier, rapist-daddy enabler and (former) birther Rocky Raczkowski.
Now, there's a couple of things you should know about MI-09 before I go on.
First thing: I actually live here in MI-09! I work for/help promote Lance in MI-08, but that's due to a series of unusual circumstances. I actually live just a couple of miles away from Gary Peters.
More to the point, the 9th district is entirely contained with in Oakland County, Michigan, and the County Executive is a guy named L. Brooks Patterson. Patterson has reigned supreme here in Oakland for decades as both the county prosecutor and, for the past 20 years. Brooks has his own little fiefdom here and rules with a pretty iron fist, and everyone knows who he is, so when he says or does something stupid, it makes the news.
Cut to today's Oakland Press:
L. Brooks Patterson criticized for blog’s Nazi comparison to Gary Peters
DETROIT (AP) — The Anti-Defamation League on Wednesday said it was “deeply disappointed” that an Oakland County official used a Nazi reference in a blog entry about Michigan’s 9th Congressional District race.
Betsy Kellman, the regional director for Michigan for the Jewish civil rights group, said the Holocaust analogy used by Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson did “not contribute to legitimate debate” about the race between Democratic Rep. Gary Peters and Republican challenger Rocky Raczkowski.
In Tuesday’s blog entry, Patterson, a Republican and Raczkowski supporter, accused Peters of lying in a television ad that focuses on a federal lawsuit filed against Raczkowski by a Texas-based concert promoter. The ad features three district residents saying they don’t trust Raczkowski as a result of the lawsuit, which accuses him of fraud and theft.
“Peters knows that is a lie. But as we learned during the Nazi era under the tutelage of the Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, ’Tell a lie, tell it big, and tell it often, and people will begin to believe it.”’ Patterson wrote. “So let’s take a closer look at Herr Peters’ campaign ad.”
Brooks' defense is that he "merely made reference to one of the greatest liars in history,” and that his blog post "should offend no one."
Now, obviously I'm biased here, but to be completely fair, I would agree with Brooks if he had simply said something like "There's an old saying: "Tell a lie often enough and people will believe it" and left it at that; his point would have been the same.
However, Brooks chose to deliberately throw in the specific phrases "Nazi era" and "Joseph Goebbels", and then closed by referring to "Herr" Peters.
Of course, none of this addresses the other point: His claims of the TV ad in question lying about the lawsuit are nonsense:
OVERALL IMPRESSION:
The ad is an accurate portrayal of claims made in the lawsuit by Rozone Productions against Raczkowski. The allegations of fraud, theft and conspiracy are serious, but it's important to note that they are civil, not criminal claims.
It will be up to the courts to decide whether this lawsuit and Raczkowski's defamation suit against Peters have merit. But unless they settle out of court quickly, we're unlikely to know their outcomes until after the November election.
TRUTH SQUAD CALL: No Foul
Here's the ad itself, by the way:
As for Raczkowski himself, he's smart enough to distance himself from Patterson on this one:
Raczkowski said Wednesday he didn’t know Patterson planned to address the TV ad in his blog and that “Brooks answers for himself.”
He also said he considered himself to be particularly sensitive to talk of World War II-era Germany, because his parents were imprisoned by the Nazis in Poland.
“Anyone that knows me knows that I have such distaste and disdain for the Nazis and anything the Nazis did,” he said.
I'd be very interested in getting Rich Iott's take on this mini-brouhaha...