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Madison Capital Times Editorial: Colored commentary July 25, 2001 State Rep. Carol Owens, the Oshkosh Republican now in hot water over her retrograde comments about racial minorities, is no stranger to controversy. Indeed, it should be said that Owens does not discriminate when it comes to discriminating. During a legislative career distinguished by its lack of distinction, Owens has taken shots at gays and lesbians, young people, couples experiencing marital difficulties and just about every other group that does not include white women of a certain age from Winnebago County. Owens' legislative specialty has been the importation of bills based on legislation passed by the backward legislatures of Louisiana and Alabama. Invariably, she fails because even her fellow Republicans are embarrassed by the shenanigans of a legislator who seems to think she is representing Selma in 1950, rather than Oshkosh in 2001. What is troubling about Owens' latest long walk off the short pier of her intellect - a rant about Milwaukee's "colored population" and its "serious problems" - is that some Republicans have seen fit to defend her. When more than a dozen Democratic legislators asked the state GOP leadership to distance itself from Owens' complaints about the "colored" who "will accept money (but) do not choose to change their lifestyle," state Republican Party Executive Director Darrin Schmitz responded with a bizarre defense. Schmitz claimed, "It is clear to anyone that knows (Owens) that she is a legislator who addresses these issues with careful thought." This has got to be the first time anyone has associated the name of Carol Owens with the phrase "careful thought." And if Schmitz thinks that rambling on about the "colored" is either "careful" or "thoughtful," he may want to change his party affiliation to that of Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond's old segregationist organization, the Dixiecrats. |