Tea party group drops depiction of Obama as skunk

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KANSAS CITY, Mo | Mon Dec 12, 2011 1:25pm EST

KANSAS CITY, Mo (Reuters) - In the wake of criticism, a Kansas tea party group has removed from its web site home page a comparison of President Obama to a skunk.

The Patriot Freedom Alliance, based in Hutchinson, Kansas, posted a photo of a skunk, stating it had replaced the eagle as a symbol of the president because "it is half black, half white and almost everything it does stinks."

The depiction was on the group's home web page on Saturday but gone on Sunday, said Darrell Pope, president of the Hutchinson chapter of the NAACP. It was also not on the site Monday, the day after an article about it appeared in the Hutchinson News-Leader newspaper.

"They tried to pass it off as satire, but it was hurtful and malicious," Pope said Monday. He said the depiction was racist in reference to Obama, who was born to a white mother and black father.

Pope said he did not contact the tea party group about removing the skunk reference but that it never should have been posted in the first place.

A representative of the Patriot Freedom Alliance who maintains its web site did not immediately return phone calls on Monday. Another member declined to comment.

Hutchinson is a city of about 42,000 in central Kansas, northwest of Wichita.

(Reporting by Kevin Murphy; Writing by Mary Wisniewski; Editing by Jerry Norton)
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Comments (3)
masterjace wrote:
What can I say that that story does not, that local TeaParty are nothing more than a bunch of closet KKK members only not in drag. I hear there crap all the time, I live in Kansas and things like this are common place. If you think that was bad you should spend more time in the state and see how they really feel about things. Kansas the state built on hate, we refuse to accept any that is not in the bible, and even if it is we will change it to make it fit what we want it to hate.

I would like to volunteer the state as a new site for Nuclear waste disposal. there are several rednecks that could use a good glow in the dark tan. And do not get me started on that family of inbred lawyers in Topeka that everyone seems to know. I think it is time that the Government stops looking the other way and starts doing something about these Terrorist groups in Kansas.

Dec 12, 2011 4:25pm EST  --  Report as abuse
postamerican wrote:
Uh if it isn’t racist, why not stick to their convictions? LOLZ

Dec 12, 2011 5:42pm EST  --  Report as abuse
teddyb9 wrote:
Unfortunately, as a Kansan I have to agree with the above comments, although I must say that being from Lawrence, snobby as it may sound, I and a vast majority of the rest of we Lawrencians claim exemption from this madness. It isn’t that there aren’t other scattered voices of reason in Kansas (however faint), but we supported Obama by 70 per cent of the vote. We also were the ONLY city in Kansas to vote for the gay rights amendment (also by over 70 per cent), and recognize domestic parternship relationships. The city also passed (although obviously non-binding)a law condemning the patriot act. Lawrence’s historic New England lineage put us at the forefront of the war against slavery a century and a half ago, and we remain an “open” city to people of all kinds of varying lifestyles, much to the chagrin of the rest of the state. Ii is terribly frustrating and embarassing for us to be in any way associated with such lunacy.

Dec 12, 2011 8:56pm EST  --  Report as abuse
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