GOP candidate brushes off photo on racist Web site
Of course, one could argue that this is taking place in Mississiippi, when racism is never far from the surface. Given that historical background, though, you'd think a candidate for Governor would be a wee bit more sensitive to racial issues- or at least the racial overtones that certain issues would take on. Haley Barbour, the former head of the Republican National Committee, seems either blissfully or willfully ignorant of this fact.
JACKSON, Miss. -- Republican gubernatorial nominee Haley Barbour said he will not ask the Council of Conservative Citizens to remove his picture from a group Web site that promotes white supremacist and anti-Semitic causes.
Barbour, 55, said some views on the St. Louis-based group's Web site are "indefensible," but he did not want to tell any group it cannot use his picture or statements.
"Once you get into that, you spend your time doing nothing else," Barbour said. "I don't care who has my picture. My picture's in the public domain. It gets published in newspapers every day."
In the photo on the national CCC Web site, Barbour and several other casually dressed people are shown at a political rally this past summer in rural Carroll County.
In other words, racism is no big deal, and Barbour feels no real need to disassociate himself from those who profess racist philosophies. Until the GOP begins to actively denounce racism and takes an active role in demonstrating that it knows how to be inclusive, it has no realistic hope of being anything more than the party of GOWB's. Wake up and smell the cat litter, y'all....
