Earl Butz, agriculture secretary sunk by racial joke, dies at 98

Richard Goldstein in NYT:

Earl L. Butz, who orchestrated a major change in federal farm policy as secretary of agriculture during the 1970s but came to be remembered more for a vulgar racial comment that brought about his resignation during the 1976 presidential election race, died Saturday in Washington. Mr. Butz, who lived in West Lafayette, Ind., was 98.

Serving under President Richard M. Nixon and his successor, Gerald R. Ford, Mr. Butz was a forceful, sharp-tongued figure who engineered legislation sharply reducing federal subsidies for farmers. He was the best known secretary of agriculture since Henry A. Wallace in the Depression days... Mr. Butz was an important source of political support in the Midwest farm belt for the Nixon and Ford administrations. But he was criticized by Democrats in Congress who viewed him as the voice of “agribusiness,” the corporate agricultural interests, at the expense of small farmers and consumers....

Mr. Ford had been counting on Mr. Butz to help win the Midwestern farm vote when he ran for a full term against Jimmy Carter in 1976, and Mr. Butz campaigned strenuously in that race. But his career in Washington suddenly ended a month before the election. On a plane trip following the Republican National Convention in August, accompanied by, among others, John W. Dean 3d, the former White House counsel, Mr. Butz made a remark ...

TIME magazine takes over:

Butz started by telling a dirty joke involving intercourse between a dog and a skunk. When the conversation turned to politics, singer Pat Boone, a right-wing Republican, asked Butz why the party of Lincoln was not able to attract more blacks. The Secretary responded with a line so obscene and insulting to blacks that it forced him out of the Cabinet last week and jolted the whole Ford campaign. Butz said that "the only thing the coloreds are looking for in life are tight pussy, loose shoes and a warm place to shit."

After some indecision, Dean used the line in Rolling Stone, attributing it to an unnamed Cabinet officer. But New Times magazine enterprisingly sleuthed out Butz's identity by checking the itineraries of all Cabinet members.

My favorite response some wit made to the 'joke':

"Isn't that what everyone wants?"