L.A. City Councilman Bernard Parks used his official 8th District electronic newsletter — distributed at public expense — to promote a website dedicated to attacking Senator Barack Obama’s character.

The newsletter, which went out last night, links to a Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas smear piece on the anti-Obama website The Union News. Below are a couple recent examples of the disgraceful anti-Obama headlines and rhetoric from the site:

This is the kind of hate one would expect from the American Independent Party not from a fellow Democrat. Oh wait, that’s right, Parks was a longtime member of George Wallace’s pro-segregationist American Independent Party.

UPDATE: This appears to be a clear violation of city ethics law.