How's That Republican Rebranding Coming Along, White Supremacist Edition (Cont.)

Now that Weeper of the House John "Mr. Tangerine Man" Boehner (Eunuch-OH) has thrown his full support (and that of the House Republican leadership) behind Republican Majority Whip and racist vomica Rep. Steve Scalise (Confederate-LA), additional jack-boots are hitting the floor:

This is what I remember about the first time I met Steve Scalise nearly 20 years ago: He told me he was like David Duke without the baggage. 

I was a new reporter covering Jefferson Parish, and Scalise, now the majority whip in the U.S. House of Representatives, was just starting out in the Louisiana Legislature (I’m going from memory, but the exchange obviously stuck with me). It would be several years before I would fully decode just what he meant by the sentiment, which is similar to statements he would later make to at least one Washington news outlet, and what it said about Jefferson Parish and Louisiana politics. 

The “baggage,” of course, was Duke’s past, his racist and anti-Semitic views and his former role as a KKK grand wizard. Scalise disavowed Duke then, as he did once again this week, when blogger Lamar White Jr. revealed that Scalise had spoken in 2002 at a meeting hosted by a Duke-founded white nationalist group. 

But the other part of the sentence, the part about their similarity, was the rub. Scalise may have been naïve about how to express himself to a newcomer, but he was already a savvy politician who knew that, even though Duke had lost the governor’s race a few years earlier, Duke voters were still around. And those Duke voters also were potential Scalise voters. (our emphasis)

Oops.

So, far from being the naive candidate as he's tried to portray himself, "David Duke Without The Baggage" Scalise knew all about who he was courting when he spoke at the white supremacist, anti-Semitic European-American Unity and Rights Organization in 2002.  Of course, this should come as a surprise only to people who've been in a coma or a cave since the days of Richard Nixon, Lee Atwater and all the other implementers of the Republican Southern Strategy.

Kudos to Lamar White, Jr., and to Stephanie Grace for exposing this small-bore Confederate racist for all to see.

UPDATE:  We're sure "David Duke Without The Baggage" Scalise didn't know about this, too.

UPDATE II:  More on how "David Duke Without The Baggage" Scalise is well within the spectrum of the Republican base.