Just who's the racist here? the gov ... or the reporter?

Gov LePage at today's press conference. (Michael Shepherd video image)

If a black mayor of a predominately black Mississippi city devastated by heroin said that a terrible byproduct of the epidemic was the impregnation of black girls by out-of-state drug dealers with names like "Smoothie" and "Shifty," would there be a hue and cry from the local paper's editorial writers that the mayor was being racist?

Think a minute before you answer.

Of course by now you know we're not talking about a Mississippi mayor. We're talking about the Maine governor, our own tough-talking (I speak before I think) Gov. Paul LePage, who said drug dealers from New York or Connecticut often impregnate "white girls" in Maine. Later he sought to explain his remarks saying 95 percent of Mainers are white and he meant to say "Maine girls."

Right now I'm very angry and upset over LePage's remarks. Mostly because why does he, himself, seem bent on torpedoing all the good things he's done for the state by making these insipid gaffes.

They undermine his own policy directives and make Mainers the brunt of jokes.

But more to the point, the LePage story has had and will continue to have legs, which in journalism terms, means that this story won't be going away today or tomorrow.

It'll make the rounds for the next several days on major networks and at least through Election Day in November on MSNBC and CNN.

But what kind of legs do you think the comment made by the first reporter who questioned LePage during this morning's press conference have?

"What about the black community," the female reporter says. "They're upset that you're singling out drug traffickers who have been black."

First, let's try to understand what this gal's gripe is. Actually first of all, what black community is so hotly angered that LePage might be taking a swipe at black men who are heroin dealers.

And let's not try to let facts get in the way of a good story. We receive press releases all the time from the Maine Dept. of Safety and whenever there's a heroin bust that involves folks from the Big Apple, it's inevitably a black man or men from New York and a white Mainer who runs the local operation that are arrested.

I can't say I remember one white guy from New York ever being arrested on heroin trafficking in one of these big busts. And I think I'd remember because it would be so unusual.

But beyond that, let's hear what the woman reporter says after LePage says that he wasn't talking about black men and never mentioned black men.

"Didn't you say 'D Money' and 'Swifty,'" she protests.

So I guess she can't fathom anyone but a black man from New York having a nickname such as these.

How racist is that?

It's great to know that we have objective journalists in this state who don't let their prejudices dictate their storyline, their story's or column's nuance and their questions at a press converence.