Linked here is a copy of Ward Connerly's recent letter replying to Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm's hypocritical op-ed in the March 9, 2006 Detroit Free Press, along with the original op-ed which is no longer online (also included is the short letter to the editor the Free Press allowed Michigan Civil Rights Initiative Executive Director Jennifer Gratz. The Free Press would not give Connerly or Gratz equal space to respond to the Governor's personal attacks). The thrust of Granholm's hypocrisy is this embarrasing argument:

It's no wonder that the impetus for this constitutional amendment has come from an outsider, California activist Ward Connerly. Had he been from Michigan, he'd know what we know: that our diversity is part and parcel in our economic strength.

The hypocrisy should be obvious coming from the Canadian-born Governor, but Connerly does a devastatingly precise dissection of Granholm, who has now joined with the Honorable John Dingell in the Bull Connor impersonation game. Connerly writes:

At the outset, let me address my status as an “outsider.” Governor, I was born in Leesville, Louisiana, a fact which makes me an American citizen by birth. How is it that you, being Canadian by birth, have a greater entitlement to the privileges and benefits of American citizenship than I? Among those benefits and privileges is the right to have opinions and the right to express those opinions about matters – big and small – that affect all Americans. Michigan is not an island in some foreign country. It is one of the American states to which my tax dollars flow and where my passport of “civil rights” is presumed to be valid. If your defense of racial and gender preferences is on such solid ground, why is it necessary to hearken back to the days of Jim Crow segregationists who complained about those “outsiders” who asserted their right to urge our nation to fulfill the promise of equal treatment to all Americans, regardless of race, color, or national ancestry?
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Had you been born in America, perhaps you would have a better appreciation of this fact (regarding equal treatment).

But the beef of the argument boils down to a dissection of Granholm's wierd claims that defeating MCRI is necessary to somehow preserve Michigan's currently tubing economy. Granholm humorously asserts:

It would deny our state the ability to compete for jobs and economic growth in our increasingly global economy.

Connerly retorts:

What is it about individuals such as you and Congressman John Dingell, who has also taken me to task for exercising my right as an American to express opposition to race preferences in Michigan, that causes you to be so intolerant and insecure about your convictions that you resort to such intellectual isolationism when it comes to an issue such as race? On the one hand, you talk boldly about the “global economy,” but then you retreat into your state’s rights cocoon when it comes to matters such as civil rights.

Does Granholm want out-of-state participation in Michigan, or would she prefer to continue isolating Michigan.

The rest of the exchange that I have linked here is chock full of priceless bits. I can't begin to do it justice here.