“A Dutchess County official has touched off a furor by telling a black MSNBC news anchor on Twitter, “Keep your stinking paws off my kid, you damned dirty ape.”
The remark by Jim Coughlan, the Dutchess County controller and a candidate for state Senate, was directed at Melissa Harris-Perry in response to remarks she made about child-rearing that upset many conservatives.

Coughlan said he had no idea that Harris-Perry is black and denied the comment had racist undertones, saying he simply repeating a “well-known quote from the Planet of the Apes.””* The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.

*Read more here from New York Daily News / Kenneth Lovett:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/upstate-pol-stirs-race-furor-tweet-msnbc-anchor-article-1.1780967