Selective aversion
to racial exclusivity

Out on Baltimore's North Charles Street, near the city-county line, is the Elkridge Club, where Maryland's Republican Gov. Bob Ehrlich recently held a golfing fund-raiser.

This played directly into the heavy hands of Baltimore Sun columnist Michael Olesker.

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Mr. Olesker is, along with his fellow Sun writer David Nitkin, as well as the Baltimore Sun itself, suing the governor of Maryland.

For Gov. Robert Ehrlich exercised his right under the First Amendment's provision of free speech to say to Olesker and Nitkin: "No comment." And he asked all spokesmen for his administration to join him in saying "No comment."

Their loony lawsuit has already been thrown out of one federal court in Baltimore. But Olesker, Nitkin and the Sun have appealed to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals – which recently turned down a similar appeal.

The fact that Olesker is one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the governor has not stopped him from using Sun ink to continue attacking the governor; as follows:

• "As several Elkridge members and former officers confirmed to the Sun last week, there has not been a black person admitted to membership in the club in its entire 127-year history."

• By state law, clubs must have inclusionary policies (not barring women, blacks, or other minority groups from joining) and the clubs must assure this by disclosing their membership rolls to the state, to get a property tax break on their highly valuable land. In 1977, the Elkridge Club decided to forfeit that break ..."

• "This is a governor who has gained much political capital – and rightly so – by choosing Maryland's first African-American running mate. He has also been accused (by this newspaper, among others) of choosing him not because Steele had a particularly inspiring personal history, but for the sheer symbolic strength of his skin color."

The Washington Post quoted the governor as saying that he was not aware that the Elkridge Club has no black members:

"We rented the place for four hours. I don't know what their membership list is, and guess what – it's none of my business, nor is it any of your business. This is all a bunch of nothing."

Actually, however, Olesker's column has been clearly demonstrated as evidence of Olesker's towering hypocrisy – by the awesome memory of Baltimore talk-radio host Tom Marr of WCBM.

Tom recalled – and announced on the air – that a former member of the all-white Elkridge Club was the Baltimore Sun's former publisher Reg Murphy!

If this was known to Tom Marr, why wasn't it known by the Baltimore Sun columnist Michael Olesker and by Sun political writer David Nitkin?

That it was apparently well known by Olesker was demonstrated by a separate Sun attempt to extricate itself from this major media malfeasance.

Sun writer Andrew Green reported on July 6:

A campaign spokeswoman for a leading Democratic politician, Baltimore County Executive James T. Smith Jr., confirmed yesterday that a supporter hosted a fund-raiser for him at Elkridge on May 4.

"Jim Smith has never belonged to a country club in his life. He was not aware of the country club's membership composition, and as the leader of a diverse county, he appreciates that it has been brought to his attention. Clearly he will not have future campaign events hosted at this location," said Rachael Rice, a fund-raising consultant for the Smith campaign.

Ehrlich said the outcry from African-American leaders over the event is evidence of a double standard because they had not similarly criticized "a number of prominent Democrats" who have held fund-raisers there.

Ehrlich's office pointed out yesterday that the Sun has also had some association with Elkridge over the years.

Former Sun publisher Reg Murphy said he joined the Elkridge Club when he moved to Baltimore, but he was unaware of its membership composition.

But the Sun did not report when Murphy resigned from Elkridge.

Columnist Olesker also tried to soften the Baltimore Sun's incredible contention that Lt. Gov. Michael Steele's only value is "the color of his skin."

How did Olesker try to do this? He wrote the following: "How comfortable is he [Steele] with a country club that hasn't allowed any black people to be members, and a governor who can't seem to understand that we don't like to stigmatize people by background in multicultural America?"

If the highly embarrassed (and circulation-plummeting) Sun decides to continue publishing Olesker's highly questionable column, will they ask him the following questions:

• If you write against the Elkridge Club's all-white membership, when will you similarly condemn Congress for allowing the all-black-and-no-whites race group called the Congressional Black Caucus?

• When will you write against the nationally-headquartered-in-Baltimore NAACP, whose governing board is only 1/64th non-black?

• Have you ever directed any such criticism of all-one-race to either Baltimore's Black Muslims or Baltimore's Arch Club, which is all black males?