All in the family

Rudy Giuliani's troubles in South Carolina continue.

First, his state chairman, state Treasurer Thomas Ravenel, was suspended from state government and forced to resign his position with the campaign last week after being indicted on federal cocaine charges. Now Giuliani's campaign is taking heat for announcing that Ravenel's father, former US Representative and state senator Arthur Ravenel Jr., would serve as one of his regional chairmen in South Carolina.

Arthur Ravenel has been an outspoken advocate of flying the Confederate flag on the grounds of the South Carolina State House. At a rally for the flag in 2000, he called the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People the "National Association for Retarded People," local media reported at the time. He later said he misspoke but then apologized to the mentally disabled for comparing them to the NAACP, the Charleston Post and Courier reported.

"I didn't apologize to the NAACP," the paper quoted Ravenel as saying. "I apologized to the retarded folks of the world for equating them to the national NAACP."

The Giuliani campaign declined to address Ravenel's past comments. Talking Points Memo yesterday first picked up on Ravenel's past remarks.