Earlier today, the Virginia Republican Party named Joe Ellison as its new Director of African-American Engagement. The ink had barely dried on the press release when TPM's Perry Stein recalled that back in 2010, Ellison made a comment that makes E. W. Jackson look almost sane by comparison.
You may remember that Pat Robertson claimed the 2010 Haiti earthquake happened because Haiti made a "pact with the devil" in embracing voodoo. To give you an idea just how harshly condemned he was for this, he got slammed up, down and sideways for them on Free Republic. Free Republic, people.
Well, apparently they weren't too extreme for Ellison. Stein (who incorrectly said the quake happened in 2009) happened to find a WaPo article in which Ellison, speaking at a meeting of the Virginia Christian Alliance, essentially gave Marion Gordon a standing ovation.
"I know his comments angered a lot of the so-called, in my opinion, liberals," said the Rev. Joe Ellison, vice president of the Council on Spiritual Principles, who said he was speaking as an emissary of the black community.
"From a spiritual standpoint, we think the Dr. Robertson was on target about Haiti, in the past, with voodoo. And we believe in the Bible that the practice of voodoo is a sin, and what caused the nation to suffer. Those who read the Bible and study the history know that what Dr. Robertson said was the truth."
Wow. You really have to wonder what other kind of lunacy gets spewed from Ellison's pulpit at Essex Village Evangelistic Church near Richmond. And yet, Virginia GOP chairman Pat Mullins applauded Ellison for his "great work for the people of Virgnia." Doesn't say a whole lot about Mullins' values.
Back on 2009, Jack Cafferty said that the national GOP seemed to be on its way to becoming a cartoon. Well, with this appointment, we know for sure at least one state GOP is in a double-time march toward becoming a cartoon.