From TPM comes this email Dave Bartholomew, the chair of the Virginia Beach GOP, thought was funny enough to forward to other people:

MY DOG

I went down this morning to sign up my Dog for welfare.

At first the lady said, “Dogs are not eligible to draw welfare”.

So I explained to her that my Dog is black, unemployed, lazy, can’t speak English and has no frigging clue who his Daddy is.

So she looked in her policy book to see what it takes to qualify…

My Dog gets his first check Friday.

Is this a great country or what?

Bartholomew offered to resign Monday night over the email, but there are some interesting defenses coming out of other Virginia GOP higher-ups:

David Bartholomew is not a racist and agreed to resign because the e-mail had become a distraction to the Nov. 2 election, said Gary Byler, the 2nd Congressional District GOP chairman, after meeting with Bartholomew.

The e-mail was dated March 15 and sent from the address that Bartholomew uses as party chairman. Bartholomew forwarded it without reading the contents when “he was first getting familiar with the Internet,” Byler said.

Just learning the internet is not an excuse for forwarding racist emails you deem funny. This excuse makes this a “his only crime was getting caught” defense. Of course others are already playing the “politics” card. I swear you could catch a GOP candidate holding a bloody knife, standing over a bloody corpse and if someone brings it up they would quickly say “they are just playing politics”. Exposing a racist isn’t playing politics; it’s exposing a hate monger that has no place in American politics.