NASHVILLE — Tennessee Republican Party Chairwoman Robin Smith said Monday that a June 2 “private” letter she wrote to Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen about the state Human Rights Commission was leaked as part of a campaign to publicly “smear” her integrity and suggest she is a racist.

Accusing the Bredesen administration of “flatly ignoring” many groups’ open records requests, Mrs. Smith said “yet, when a very innocuous e-mail that really pertains to no one is out personally and all of a sudden it becomes front page news, that is absolutely a political smear job.”

She said “it’s very disappointing that our sitting governor and his administration would choose to utilize those tactics.”

Bredesen spokeswoman Lydia Lenker said the letter had been formally requested by the Tennessee Democratic Party under state Open Records Act provisions.

“You’ll have to pose that question to them,” she said on how they became aware of the letter.

Tennessee Democratic Party communications director Wade Munday acknowledged seeking the letter after hearing talk about it. He said he could not recall whether he heard about it at party headquarters or at the Legislative Plaza.

He dismissed Mrs. Smith’s “smear” allegations, saying, “I think Robin Smith and (GOP communications director) Bill Hobbs of all people know what a political smear is. We’ve seen incendiary press releases that quite frankly have sullied the image of Tennessee.”

The letter was first reported Friday night by Post Politics, a blog at the online news service Nashville Post.

In it, Mrs. Smith defended her six years of service on the Human Rights Commission. She said Democrats she were attacking her as a commissioner based on her role as GOP chairwoman in criticizing presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle.

In a February news release entitled “Anti-Semites for Obama,” the state GOP used U.S. Sen. Obama’s middle name, Hussein, and on its Web site showed a photo of the candidate in traditional Kenyan robes and turban. The GOP described them as “Muslim” garb. It ignited a furor and drew criticism from presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain.

Mrs. Smith, whose Human Rights Commission term was expiring, told Gov. Bredesen in the letter she was “grossly disappointed” that Democrats were attacking her in her Human Rights commission role.

“Rather than stand in the arena of politics and address specific policy differences and claims made by the candidate and his wife, the shrill cry of ‘racism’ has been leveled toward me,” she wrote.

“I would’ve chosen to let these hollow accusations fall without answer had it not been for my children coming to me with concern and for understanding,” Mrs. Smith wrote, noting later that “I begrudge no one for making a political appointment.”

Last week the Bredesen administration announced the governor had tapped Patricia Ann Pierce, director of Nashville-based Vanderbilt University’s Opportunity Development Center, to succeed Mrs. Smith as an East Tennessee representative on the panel.

Ms. Pierce was a previous Middle Tennessee appointment to the panel. Bredesen spokeswoman Lenker said Ms. Pierce now lives in East Tennessee.

The Post Politics blog raised the issue that Mrs. Smith “seems to convey, implicitly at least, an openness to the idea of reappointment.”

That prompted an e-mail from Mrs. Smith to the Post Politics blog in which she said among other things that, “I was targeted for being a conservative, Christian Republican who chooses to be truthful and candid rather than cater to the politically correct and the elite.”

In an interview Monday, Mrs. Smith and her communications director, Mr. Hobbs, said part of her charge about a “smear” was based on the suggestion she was trying to bargain for reappointment.

“You know what?” Mrs. Smith said. “I’m not going to get in the mud with the pigs because the pigs will enjoy it and I’ll get muddy, too.”

Comments