Friday night, during the “Reagan dinner” held by people who think that Ronald Reagan is someone you should think about when eating and making money, CPAC communication director Ian Walters made this dog-whistleless proclamation.
This is the “communication director,” of the biggest conservative money-spending event. As former RNC chair Michael Steele, who was at the dinner, told the Observer—he’s unhappy with that assessment:
“I wanted to talk to [CPAC chair] Matt Schlapp first, but I think it’s painfully stupid what he said,” Steele told Observer. “If he feels that way I’d like him to come say that to my face. And then I’d like him to look at my record and see what I did. I can’t believe an official of CPAC would go onstage in front of an audience and say something like that. I’ve been a strong supporter of CPAC for many years and I thought they raised them better than that here.”
When asked if he thought Walter’s remarks were indicative of the current state of the Republican Party, Steele added that he “was not going to project that out.”
Steele need not “project” anything out. I will. The Republican Party and its conservative overlords are and always have been wickedly racist. Their pursuit of power has always resided, and continues to reside, in maintaining and reinforcing a white supremacist paradigm. Steele seemed a little less diplomatic on Saturday.
He said that he spoke Friday night with Walters, who offered him a "ham-handed apology" in his view.
[...]
"That's reflective of the stupidity, the ignorance and the a-hole-ishness ... that exists inside the party," he said.
Sorry, Mr. Steele, but the Republican Party isn’t a good place for anyone who plans on holding onto their dignity or integrity.
“I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves or figments of their imagination, indeed, everything and anything except me.”
—Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
You can watch Ian Walters sticking his foot in his mouth below the fold.