Desperate Liberal U.S. Rep. Gary Peters Attacks Opponent with Sexual Slur in Front of Room of Female Voters

Last Updated: September 24. 2010 1:00AM

Peters slur: Rocky 'is a teabagger'
Henry Payne / The Michigan View.com

At a recent candidates' forum in Bloomfield Hills, Democratic U.S. Rep. Gary Peters used the slur 'teabagger" when attacking his congressional opponent, Republican Rocky Raczkowski, according to sources familiar with the event, including the Raczkowski campaign. "Teabagger" (or "teabagging") is a crude term used against Tea Party members that takes its name from an oral sex act, and has been widely condemned as offensive even as some Democrats continue to use it. Anderson Cooper famously used the term on CNN earlier this year and later apologized.

The two candidates for the 9th district congressional seat appeared together at an event held by the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority at the Bloomfield Township Library on Sept. 19. Alpha Kappa -- a black women's group -- is historically friendly territory for Democrats, and sources say Peters was comfortable -- perhaps too comfortable -- in disparaging his Republican opponent.

"My friend here is a teabagger," Peters is purported to have said at one juncture, pointing in Raczkowski's direction. A Peters staffer at the event reportedly froze at the term's use. Repeated calls to the Peters campaign to confirm or deny the term's use were not returned.

The term is particularly offensive to women, and two Michigan tea party officers -- both women -- were furious upon hearing of Peters' use of the term.

Wendy Day, founder of Common Sense in Government and also an active tea party organizer, said that "for a U.S. congressman to show such poor judgment shows his lack of character."

"I did not think (Peters) was so dishonorable that he would use that term," said Janice Daniels, a tea party organizer and resident of the 9th district in Oakland County, who gasped when she heard the term.

Daniels decried the use of the "offensive term" at "a time when we need the conversation in the public arena raised to a higher level."

Indeed, Peters himself called out Rocky earlier in the campaign for allegedly questioning whether President Obama is a natural born U.S. citizen and "joining the birther movement." The "birthers" are a discredited fringe on the Right, and Peters used as evidence an audiotape alleging that Raczkowski demanded to see Obama's birth certificate.

The tape is simply too garbled to know the truth of the comment, and Raczkowski adamantly denied that he had made the comment. Still, it was Peters' claim to the high ground in this campaign and put both campaigns on notice that words matter.

It is ironic then, that it is Peters who seems to have slipped. Coupled with his personal attacks on Raczkowski's business ethics this week, the "teabagger" slur is evidence that the Peters' campaign has given up the high ground for the gutter.

Henry Payne is editor of The Michigan View.com