New state Democratic Committee exec pans Steve Levy

Moments after he was announced Tuesday as the new executive director of the state Democratic Committee, attorney Charlie King depicted as offensive past statements from gubernatorial candidate Steve Levy.

Outside City Hall in Manhattan, King noted that GOP state chairman Ed Cox, a Levy backer, condemned racially and sexually charged joke e-mails forwarded by another Republican candidate, Carl Paladino. King asked why Cox would "give Steve Levy a pass when he says that every black person is a Shaniqua, and makes jokes about deporting bus boys, and talking about anchor babies, as an elected official."

The Suffolk executive has said repeatedly he used "Shaniqua" in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day address only to underscore how ethnic names were a chronic source of housing discrimination. "I never made a statement that every black person is a Shaniqua," Levy replied. "The type of race-baiting that Charlie wallows in is a turnoff to moderate Democrats who don't believe in his advocacy for illegal immigration, or his politically correct distortion."

Levy's 2005 use of "anchor babies" evokes illegal immigrants getting a U.S. foothold by having children here. Last August Levy joked, during a satirical roast in Bay Shore, about "deporting the guys back there in the kitchen."

King was acting director from 2007 to 2009 of the Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network.