Ohio Gov. Strickland Gives Ohioans Bad Reputation

Governor: Ohioans have paid too high a price to welcome refugees
JOHN McCARTHY
Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Gov. Ted Strickland on Wednesday had a message for President Bush: any plan to relocate thousands of refugees uprooted by the Iraq war to the U.S. shouldn't include Ohio.

The Bush administration plans to allow about 7,000 Iraqi refugees to settle in the United States over the next year, a huge expansion at a time of mounting international pressure to help millions who have fled their homes in the nearly four-year-old war.

The United States has allowed only 463 Iraq refugees into the country since the war began in 2003, even though some 3.8 million have been uprooted.

Strickland, a Democrat who opposed the war as a U.S. House member, said Ohioans cannot be expected to have open arms for Iraqis displaced by the war. More than 100 Ohioans have been killed since the war began.

"I think Ohio and Ohioans have contributed a lot to Iraq in terms of blood, sweat and too many tears," Strickland said. "I am sympathetic to the plight of the innocent Iraqi people who have fled that country. However, I would not want to ask Ohioans to accept a greater burden than they already have borne for the Bush administration's failed policies."

More.

As an Ohioan, I am disgusted that my Governor would so distastefully misrepresent Ohioans as inhospitable to legal immigrants. This clearly racist and disgusting conduct by the governor has tarnished the image of the great Buckeye State. I, for one, will remember this when Strickland is up for re-election.

Who does he think he is, as a Governor, telling a whole race of people - anyone for that matter, that they are not welcome to come to and live in Ohio. If we lived in more civil times, Strickland would be tarred, featherd, then run out of town on a rail.

H/T Right Angle.

Even Strickland's supporters are upset over this.