From The New York Daily News…
Billboard outside Georgia restaurant uses N-word to deride Obama health care policy plan
By Neil Nagraj
Daily News Staff Writer
And you thought Joe Wilson’s “You Lie!” outburst was a low point for political discourse.
A Georgia businessman is using the N-word on a sign outside his restaurant to slam President Obama’s health care plan.
The billboard outside the Peach Oyster Bar in Paulding County reads, “Obama’s plan for health care — [N-word] rig it,” Atlanta CBS affiliate WGCL reported.
“I’ve used the N-word most of my life and there is different ways to put your opinion up, but that’s just the words I choose to use,” owner Patrick Lanzo told WGCL. “I’ve put signs up for 22 years. … I’ve put all kinds of political signs up.”
Despite the presence of a mannequin clad in a Ku Klux Klan outfit standing amid the pool tables, Lanzo maintained he’s no a racist. The bar has pictures of Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr. on the walls, he pointed out, and he also showed a reporter his 2005 NAACP membership card.
Lanzo said he’s just opposed to Obama’s health care plan, which he called “substandard.”
“I stand by my President, but I also stand by my right under the First Amendment to criticize him if I feel he’s wrong,” Lanzo said.
In a statement to WGCL, a local NAACP chapter took aim not at Lanzo’s message, but those who are allowing it.
“This latest ploy for attention by Mr. Lanzo is not surprising. What is of concern, however, is the total lack of leadership and action from the elected officials of Paulding County, who repeatedly have allowed this type of toxic public display,” the statement read.
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