I've mentioned before that efforts to market the "Republican brand" online are generally going poorly — at least for Republicans. That's not changing. The recent launch of the GOP web site was bungled in an easily-parodied way.

It only gets worse.

Apparently the RNC has a Facebook fan page. Now, there's nothing wrong with having a Facebook fan page for your political organization — so long as it is maintained and monitored by somebody competent, so that nobody can use it to make you look like a jackass. Did the RNC hire someone attentive and competent? Apparently not, since this image was uploaded onto the fan page and left there for days:

From the tone and literacy of the poster, I'm 99% sure that it was uploaded by someone wanting the RNC to look bad, rather than by an actual RNC fan who is an actual racist. But such propaganda measures are not just possible in the modern environment — they are obvious, predictable, and inevitable. Any political organization that employs online media that permits user submission must use competent moderation, or this sort of thing is going to happen — as the Obama campaign found out.

So does this poster prove a point about racism in the GOP? No. But it does prove a point about institutional competence and seriousness.

Some of the methods government agents use to separate the criminals from the non-criminals are reliable. For instance, seeing them commit crimes, or using actual non-fabricated evidence.

Other times, government agents like to use short cuts. Sometimes those short cuts are bogus pseudo-scientific programs, like the TSA's "Behavior Detection System" and suchlike. Racial and cultural profiling can be a variation on this — especially when it is conducted in a generalized, clumsy manner.

Take, for instance, Smoky the Bear warning us that people who drink Mexican beer might be drug dealers.

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Recently the Obama Administration tapped Arif Alikhan for a high-level job in the Department of Homeland Security. This generated considerable handwringing among some bloggers. The tumult is centered around not just the fact that Arif is apparently a devout Muslim of Indian and Pakistani roots, but that his appointment was praised by CAIR (the Council for American-Islamic Relations) and that he recently attended a fundraiser for MPAC (the Muslim Public Affairs Council).

Arif and I were at the U.S. Attorney's Office at the same time. He's a friendly acquaintance, not a close friend. However, let me say this: I have no qualms whatsoever about his appointment. Arif was — and is — liked and respected by prosecutors and by the federal law enforcement community. That's not a notably liberal group. He was known as an intelligent, capable and diligent trial lawyer, investigator, and supervisor, who pushed innovations in prosecuting computer crime. Once I left the U.S. Attorney's office and joined the defense bar, I learned that he was regarded as tough but fair by the other side — something that prosecutors should aspire to. I never heard a bad word spoken about his honesty, loyalty, or ability. I have no doubts about his ability to do any job handed to him at DHS, and no doubts that he will work skillfully and sensibly for the security of the nation.

I had no idea that Arif is a devout Muslim. It simply wasn't an issue when we served together as prosecutors. And I don't care. To be perfectly blunt, I don't believe that all of the complaints about him linked above are about MPAC and CAIR, rather than about him being a Muslim. We have not, despite the best efforts and arguments of some, reached a point in this nation where religion disqualifies anyone for public service, and I hope that we never do. I don't agree with many of CAIR's positions, but an endorsement by a group does not equate to endorsement of a group.

My sincere congratulations go out to Arif.

Here's the thing about trickling out documents and recordings from Presidential archives — it's the exact opposite of pulling the band-aid off quickly. It's the exact opposite of Trash Day, on which (if you credit Aaron Sorkin) the White House dumps out all of the bad news before the weekend. Rather, it's almost calculated to remind us anew every few months or years how most politicians are, in their hearts, unlikeable choads.

Case in point: the reliably loathsome when not opening China Tricky Dick.

Nixon worried that greater access to abortions would foster “permissiveness,” and said that “it breaks the family.” But he also saw a need for abortion in some cases — like interracial pregnancies, he said.

“There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,” he told an aide, before adding, “Or a rape.”

Nixon went on to suggest that sex with a minority is like the weather, in that one might as well lie back and enjoy it.

Note that this trickling-out of records doesn't tend to work out well for the Presidents' pals, either:

The tapes also include a phone call from February 1973 between Nixon and the evangelist Billy Graham, during which Mr. Graham complained that Jewish-American leaders were opposing efforts to promote evangelical Christianity, like Campus Crusade. The two men agreed that the Jewish leaders risked setting off anti-Semitic sentiment.

“What I really think is deep down in this country, there is a lot of anti-Semitism, and all this is going to do is stir it up,” Nixon said.

At another point he said: “It may be they have a death wish. You know that’s been the problem with our Jewish friends for centuries.”

Yesterday I spoke with an ex-FBI private investigator we are using on a case with forensic accounting issues. It was the first time I had spoken with him; my partner initiated the call in order to introduce me. Knowing that he was on speaker-phone on our end with more than one person, and without being introduced to anyone or ascertaining how many people were on my end or who they were, the agent started out the conversation with two racial jokes about Obama (the aspirin one and the garden tools one).

It would be inaccurate to say I was offended. But I was definitely appalled. Our client is going to pay this guy by the hour for his good judgment? I'm going to rely on his good judgment in advising my client?

Where do they grow these people?

I'm just not sure how email and social networking are going to work out for the Republicans.

No, I'm not just talking about the fact that Dems like Obama seem better able to use e-solicitations to flimflam millions of gullible net users out of that week's latte and/or beer money. I'm talking about Republicans having a seemingly harder time of grasping this simple truth: if you are a dipshit, and you are willing to commit your dipshittery to writing (especially when that writing is easily forwarded, copied, and linked to), then many, many more people are going to learn that you are a dipshit.

See, Republicans have been having a little spate of trouble with officials and staffers — usually but not always on the state level — getting caught sending around racist jokes at President Obama's expense. In today's iteration, Sherri Goforth, staffer to Tennessee Republican state senator Diane Black, sent around a picture showing miniature portraits of the nation's presidents, with the last spot occupied by two big eyes peering out of the dark. Ha ha! Because black people don't show up on camera because they are so black! Even if it's a painting! It's a knee-slapper! Caught out, Sherri Goforth confessed, and attempted to recoup some points by executing an Olympic-quality I'm-sorry-you-found-out-I'm-an-asshole non-apology apology:

When I asked her if she understood the controversial nature of the photo, Goforth would only say she felt very bad about accidentally sending it to the wrong list. When I gave her a second chance to address the controversial nature of the email, she again repeated that she only felt bad about sending it to the wrong list of people.

“I went on the wrong email and I inadvertently hit the wrong button,” Goforth told NIT. “I’m very sick about it, and it’s one of those things I can’t change or take back.”

This is merely the most recent instance. Liberal blogs like Wonkette have been gleefully reporting as Republican after Republican has been caught sending around stupid racist stuff: Trey Walker, aide to Republican South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster, talking about how Michelle Obama is a gorilla's descendant; or Diann Jones, a Republican Party vice-chair from Dallas, sending an email about the "black house" to judges and then getting shirty about it when they forwarded it to the press; Southern California Republican (ex)-mayor Dean Grosse, who sent around the popular-amongst-idjits watermellon-growing-on-the-White-House-lawn email; and so on and so on, ad nauseum and ad moronum (more collected here.).

I've said before that I pine for the return (or the arrival in the first instance, if you prefer) of a Republican party that stands for, among other things, taking responsibility for your own actions. So while emails and social networking may not be a good thing for the modern Republican party as it currently kind-of exists, they may prove to be a healthy purgative in the long term. This sort of thing can help rid the party of people it should be rid of, including but not limited to (1) racists, and (2) really stupid people, including the subgroups of (a) people who think racial humor is funny and (b) people with such piss-poor judgment that they put racial humor in emails. Personally I'd also like to see this result in the culling of (3) people who whine about "political correctness," by which they mean "the awful system in which I am called a dick if I act like a dick," and (4) people who think that being called a racist when they say racist shit means that they are being silenced by an oppressive society. Categories (3) and (4) may be summarized, for convenience, as "whiny little bitches." Watch for a flood of whiny little bitching from Sherri Goforth's defenders.

I doubt the purge will work very fast or very well. But a man can dream.

You know, anyone can have a bad day. But some of us, due to an admixture of character and destiny, have worse days than others.

Marcus Epstein had a bad day on July 7, 2007 in our nation's capital. It was a bad day because he got a bad drunk on, and because he got arrested. Why did he get arrested? Well, apparently Marcus Epstein approached a woman on the street — a complete stranger to him — called her a nigger, and karate-chopped her head.

I think it was a pretty bad day for her, too.

Regrettably, fisticuffs by drunken racist boors are not unknown in Washington, D.C. or elsewhere, and this story might have gone largely unnoticed nationwide.

Except for one thing.

Marcus Epstein was the Executive Director of Team America PAC, the anti-immigration political action committee founded by Republican Congressman and vigilant immigration foe Tom Tancredo and co-run by Bay Buchanan.

What is more notable is that Marcus Epstein remained the Executive Director of Team America PAC even after entering a no-contest plea to the July 7, 2007 incident.

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I think I need to add a new trigger phrase to my proposed Celestial Autodubber: "I know this sounds really racist, but I'm not . . . ."

Actually, BBC personality Sam Manson, you are.

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Say you write a piece for the Los Angeles Times about Obama's election and what it says about race in America, and include language like this:

Obama is what I have called a "bargainer" — a black who says to whites, "I will never presume that you are racist if you will not hold my race against me." Whites become enthralled with bargainers out of gratitude for the presumption of innocence they offer. Bargainers relieve their anxiety about being white and, for this gift of trust, bargainers are often rewarded with a kind of halo.

And you offer this author blurb at the end:

Shelby Steele is an author, columnist and senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

Hmm. Don't you think that maybe, just maybe, your readers might have wound up better informed if the author blurb had said this?

Shelby Steele is an author, columnist and senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. He advanced the same thesis about "bargainers" in his recent book A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama And Why He Can't Win. [Emphasis mine; wrongness in original]

Sure, maybe it's unreasonable to expect him to say "Look, you ought to consider the distinct possibility that I am full of shit, because these are the same theories that led me to publish and promote a book arguing that Obama would never become president." But wouldn't an author with a smidgen of self-respect or intellectual honesty have managed, at least, to sneak in a self-deprecating "Ooops. My bad!" in there someplace?

Via Wolcott.

I'll be the first to admit — I was wrong. Until very recently, I thought it was highly unlikely that the United States would elect a black person as president in my lifetime. I'm pleased that I was so wrong. I'm particularly pleased because of them:

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Part the First: many people are edgy about the safety of products from China these days (or at least, that was the scare of the month a few months ago.) Few, however, are rendered as stupid and insensitive in their fear as Congressman Joe Knollenberg (R-MI), who wrote a blog post originally titled "Protecting Your Family From Asian Invaders." Give Joe credit for avoiding "Yellow Peril." Joe has since rendered the language non-operative. Blogging isn't for everyone, Joe.

Part the Second: one of my worst nightmares, frankly. Thuggish border police in England detain a family with white parents and a multi-racial disabled child for several hours and accuse the parents of "trafficking"

The family was stopped by plain clothes officer from the Channel Tunnel Policing Unit on 20 February.

Ms Maynard, a legal advocate, said the officer, who failed to identify who she was, asked for the family's passports then asked "who's the boy?"

"My son is mixed race and the officer then told us, 'I believe you are child trafficking'."

When Ms Maynard asked the woman officer if she would be asked the same question if her son was white, she said the officer replied: "Are you accusing me of being a racist?"

. . . .

Ms Maynard said the woman officer told her: "It's obvious he [Joshua] has nothing to do with you".

That might depend on what the game is. Matt Lewis, of Townhall, thinks it's better to be an ugly winner, and is encouraging John McCain to go that route. Specifically, he's encouraging McCain to play the race card:

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Give the photographer a Pulitzer for capturing this image without resort to Photoshop:

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Months ago I blogged about the strange case of Keith Sampson, a student at Indiana University who worked as a janitor there, who was brought up on disciplinary charges when someone complained that he was reading a book about the Klan in a janitor break room. Well, more specifically, a book about people standing up to and defying the Klan.

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You know, I understand that each and every state in this great union has its share of dipshits. I know that undue focus of ridicule on our Southern friends (with the exception of Florida, which I think we can all agree is irretrievably fucked up) is elitist and retrograde stereotyping. I work towards not indulging overmuch in blue-state snobbery towards the South.

But sometimes y'all make it really. fucking. difficult.

Case in point: a Louisiana tizzy over a single sentence spoken in a foreign language at a graduation.

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