Grebner lawsuit highlights recent pattern of young Republican scandals

The lawsuit Ingham County Commissioner Mark Grebner recently filed against three college conservative activists in the state is the latest incident in a developing pattern of scandals involving young Republican leaders and their online activities across the country.

Grebner’s suit alleges that three state university students with ties to conservative Republican groups — Dennis Lennox of Central Michigan University, a controversial young activist who has had great success bringing attention to himself for his inflammatory tactics and who is currently serving as Cheboygan County’s drain commissioner; Bradley Dennis, a spokesman for the Michigan State University College Republicans; and Anthony Giammarinaro, who associates say is involved with the MSU College Republicans.

In the lawsuit, one of the men, Lennox, is accused of editing Grebner’s Wikipedia entry to proclaim him to be a “homosexual.” Giammarinaro is accused of editing the same Wikipedia entry to say: “In 1997, Grebner was convicted on three counts of sexually abusing children.”

Dennis and Gimmarinaro are both MSU students, who according to the suit, lived on the same floor in South Case Hall on the MSU campus in East Lansing when the Wikipedia editing in question occurred.

Lennox told Michigan Messenger last week that he did not know the two other defendants in the case. He is, however, connected to Brad Dennis as friends on Facebook.

The Grebner lawsuit comes at a time when Republican activists nationwide have been ensnared in high-profile online controversies.

The Young Republicans’ national organization has been roiled by a racially tinged battle involving 38-year-old Audra Shay, one of the two candidates running to lead the Young Republicans National Federation, an organization that serves as “a fertile source of activists for the party,” as The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder wrote last week.

Shay, who won the Young Republicans post following Saturday’s election, caused an uproar by cheering on a Facebook friend who had made racist comments on her Facebook profile.

Shay had posted an item on her Facebook page, since deleted, where one of her friends posted a comment saying: “Obama Bin Lauden [sic] is the new terrorist… Muslim is on there side [sic]… need to take this country back from all of these mad coons… and illegals.” Eight minutes later, Shay replied to that comment: “You tell em Eric! lol.”

Then there’s Derek Black, son of famous neo-Nazi leader Don Black, who was elected to the executive committee of the Palm Beach County Republican Party in Florida. His bid was supported by David Duke who, like Black’s father, was a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

Michigan has seemed to be a hotbed of such scandals, many of which the Michigan Messenger has chronicled in the past. Perhaps no other person embodies those controversies as obviously as Kyle Bristow, the former head of MSU’s YAF chapter, which under his leadership was listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2007 for a series of hate-filled protests and events (and thereafter maintained that designation for repeatedly inviting and hosting white supremacist and neo-Nazi leaders to speak on or near campus).

Among those leaders were Nick Griffin, the British National Party leader who advocates throwing all non-whites and non-Europeans out of England; Preston Wiginton, a well-known skinhead leader who brags openly about “stomping muds,” referring to dark-skinned people (who was not actually invited to speak but came with Nick Griffin as his bodyguard and did end up speaking to the crowd before Griffin’s speech); Paul Fromm, a prominent Canadian white nationalist (Bristow did not invite Fromm to speak, but he was scheduled to speak alongside him, as Bristow pointed out in an invitation to others to attend the event in which he encouraged people to keep the event secret because, “We don’t want the leftists knowing about them”); and Jared Taylor, leader of the white supremacist group American Renaissance.

Bristow was elected a Republican precinct delegate for Macomb County last fall, along with Randy Gray, a young Republican precinct delegate from Midland County who is also a member of the KKK. A few days after the election of Barack Obama as president, Gray turned up on the streets of Midland in full KKK regalia protesting the election of the nation’s first black president.

Indeed, many Republicans around the country seem to have had a difficult time adapting to electronic communication and the use of new media, from email to Facebook to Wikipedia. And the problem seems to be particularly acute when it comes to making evidently racist statements in the wake of the election of Barack Obama.

Just a few weeks ago, Rusty DePass, a county GOP chairman and former elections director in South Carolina, posted an item on his Facebook page about a gorilla escape at a local zoo that said, referring to Michelle Obama: “I’m sure it’s just one of Michelle’s ancestors — probably harmless.”

Only a few days later, a staffer for a Republican state senator in Tennessee sent an email out to other legislative staffers in the state with a picture display of all the American presidents. Obama’s picture only contained two large white eyes staring out from a black background. The staffer was reprimanded but not fired.

These situations have caused a good deal of embarrassment for the Republican Party, particularly when such behavior is exhibited by those who’ve been elected to a position in the party.

After the election of Bristow and Gray as precinct delegates, Gray was removed from that position while Bristow was not. The Palm Beach County Republican Party refused to seat Black on the executive committee.

Whether the Grebner lawsuit will cause similar problems for Lennox, an elected official, remains to be seen. He has other problems to deal with: Over the weekend, the Cheboygan County Daily News reported that Lennox has used up nearly all of his entire budget allotment for all of 2009, with six months left in the year.