This comes as no surprise to anyone who’s been reading the comments at right wing sites like Free Republic or Hot Air (where Michelle Obama is often compared to a gorilla, as we’ve documented at LGF), but now the craziness is breaking out into the open, as a prominent right winger in Tennessee sends out an email comparing the First Lady to a chimpanzee.

Walt Baker, the prominent CEO of the powerful Tennessee Hospitality Association who was a key figure in gaining approval of the controversial $585 million convention center, sent the kind of “joke” email last night — comparing First Lady Michelle Obama to Tarzan’s Cheeta — that might stop even Michael Richards in his tracks. (The entire email on the jump.)

Baker forwarded the racist missive — introduced with this: “Quoting Larry the Cable Guy … I don’t care who you are, this is funny” — to 12 prominent Nashvillians, including mayoral legislative aide Toby Compton, Nashville

Convention & Visitors’ Bureau head Butch Spyridon, lobbyists Joe Hall and Peter Heidenreich, former Scene editor and publisher, respectively, Bruce Dobie and Albie Del Favero, and Nashville Post reporter Ken Whitehouse.

Coming from a hospitality czar, the post didn’t strike recipients as particularly hospitable.

“I don’t think it’s funny — period,” Dobie says. “Anything else I have to say about it I’ve already let Walt know.”

Whitehouse calls the email “disgusting.”

Here’s the email Baker sent:

From: Walt Baker

To: Albie DelFavero, Bruce Dobie, Butch Spyridon, Joe Hall, Peter Heidenreich, Terry Clements, Toby Compton, Chuck Creasy, Rob Moorefield, Ken Whitehouse, Paul Brown, Bob Davis

Date: March 4, 2010 9:18:29 PM CST

Quoting Larry the Cable Guy…I don’t care who you are, this is funny…

I was at the store yesterday, and I ran into Tarzan! I asked him how it was going and if he was into anymore movies.



He told me that he could no longer make any more movies as he had severe arthritis in both shoulders and could no longer swing from vine to tree.



I asked how Jane was doing, he told me she was in bad shape, in a nursing home, has Alzheimer’s and no longer recognizes anyone, how sad. I asked about Boy, and he told me that Boy had gone to the big city, got hooked up with bad women, drugs, alcohol, and the only time he heard from him was if he was in trouble or needed something.


I asked about Cheeta, he beamed and said she was doing good, had married a Lawyer and now lived in the White House!!!

(Hat tip: Killgore Trout.)