Michael Steele, the Teflon Don himself, is testing out his unfire-ability by actually speaking some truth.  A dangerous endeavor for a Republican leader.  This is perhaps the smartest thing Steele has ever said, which is a bit like identifying the most articulate thud when dropping a ton of bricks from a tall building repeatedly, but still:

Why should an African-American vote Republican?

“You really don’t have a reason to, to be honest — we haven’t done a very good job of really giving you one. True? True,” Republican National Chairman Michael Steele told 200 DePaul University students Tuesday night. [...]

“We have lost sight of the historic, integral link between the party and African-Americans,” Steele said. “This party was co-founded by blacks, among them Frederick Douglass. The Republican Party had a hand in forming the NAACP, and yet we have mistreated that relationship. People don’t walk away from parties, Their parties walk away from them.

“For the last 40-plus years we had a ‘Southern Strategy’ that alienated many minority voters by focusing on the white male vote in the South. Well, guess what happened in 1992, folks, ‘Bubba’ went back home to the Democratic Party and voted for Bill Clinton.”

He still managed to, er, whitewash the insidious nature of the Southern Strategy.  It wasn’t so much about innocently “focusing on the white male vote” as it was going full-on racist in an attempt to woo a broad contingent of voters who were experiencing paroxysms of rage over civil rights progress. 

But otherwise, yeah.  Oh, and really, not much has changed other than the octaves on the dog whistle, as per Lee Atwater’s description.

(via the Dennis G-Unit)

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