Alex Triantafilou, you stay classy

Several sites, most notably Cincy Blog and ODP Blog, have been all over this, but it's worth mentioning in as many places as possible. One of our local party leaders has gotten himself into quite a bit of hot water.

Hamilton County republican party chair Alex Triantafilou decided to try and make a funny after Arlen Specter switched parties on Tuesday. At the top of a blog post that he wrote, he posted two "separated at birth" type photos. One of them was of Specter; the other was Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers trilogy. (I'd love to link to the post, but the HCRP has taken down the post - the ODP link captured all the screen grabs)

Here's the problem. The picture he pulled of Specter was from when he lost his hair following treatment for Hodgkin's Disease.

Oops.

Over the past 48 hours, Triantafilou has walked back from defending the post, first taking down the picture, then deleting the comments from the post, and finally just wiping the whole post off of the blog. To date, he has made no effort to apologize for his tasteless post, though he tries to put up a lame "it was a joke" defense in the now-deleted comments.

Part of his defense for using the picture is "the first pic that popped up when I Googled the senator was that one". Well, when I Googled Specter today, the photo he used came up third. In fact, of the 13 photos that came up on my screen (one was a cartoon), 11 of them showed him with hair.

So let's not mince words. Triantafilou tried to use a picture of Specter during his recovery from Hodgkin's to take an insensitive and disgusting shot at the former republican. Judging by his actions, it's clear that he knows he made a huge mistake. It would be nice for him to actually own up to it; it'd also be nicer if the county party told him it was time to go as well, but they're probably too busy trying to find candidates to endorse for city council to fess up for their chairman's classless behavior.