Virginia Beach GOP Chair Quits, Still Makes Excuses

by The Green Miles

(UDPATE: TPM has "independently confirmed" the Bartholomew story.  Of course, "Bartholomew did not respond to repeated requests for comment."  Pathetic. - promoted by lowkell) In the wake of a racist email scandal first reported here at Blue Virginia, the Virginia Beach Republican Party Chairman is quitting. But he's not racist! He just doesn't know how to use the series of tubes! The city's Republican chairman agreed to resign late Monday night, just hours after a racist joke sent from his e-mail address surfaced.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. "Oh, how I fondly remember those days back in the mid-1990s when I was first getting familiar with the Internet but kept accidentally forwarding racist emails," writes David Kurtz at TPM. "It was nip and tuck there for a while whether the Internet would realize its full potential or just be a clunky system that tripped you up into coming off as a bigot."