Michael Steele is promising a drastic makeover of the Republican Party’s image — and he really means it!

“We want to convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles,” Steele told the Washington Times. “But we want to apply them to urban-suburban hip-hop settings.” ¹

Recently we have heard a lot about the “new face” of the Republican Party and a “party makeover” and yet when presented the perfect opportunity to make the rhetoric factual the Party passed on the opportunity.  When Sen. Arlen Specter defected to the Democratic Party, a move more to save his own re-election bid than a change in ideology, the Republicans chose not to put a new face on the Senate Judiciary Committee but instead chose none other than Sen. Jeff Sessions.  Who is Jeff Sessions?

Sessions entered national politics in the mid-’80s not as a politician but as a judicial nominee. Recommended by a fellow Republican from Alabama, then-Senator Jeremiah Denton, Sessions was Ronald Reagan’s choice for the U.S. District Court in Alabama in the early spring of 1986. Reagan had gotten cocky by then, as more than 200 of his uberconservative judicial appointees had been rolled out across the country without serious opposition (this was pre-Robert Bork). That is, until the 39-year-old Sessions came up for review. ²

When Sessions came up for review there were charges that he was “racially insensitive”, which was just a nice way of saying he is a racist.  The year prior to being nominated to the federal court, Sessions had unsuccessfully prosecuted three civil rights workers, the Marion Three, on a shaky case of voter fraud.  At the same time Sessions overlooked the same violations by whites and the Marion Three were acquitted in four hours.

Had that prosecution been the extent of his “insensitivity” we probably wouldn’t have heard anything more about it but it was just the tip of the iceberg.

Justice Department employee, J. Gerald Hebert, testified that Sessions had, in a conversation with him, labeled the NAACP and the ACLU as “un-American” and “communist inspired”.  Hebert went on to testify that Sessions claimed the two groups had “forced civil liberties down the throats of people.”  Sessions never denied making these statements and in fact justified that such groups actually could be construed as un-American.  Other incidents that pointed to a less than sterling attitude toward blacks included Sessions comment that a white civil rights lawyer was a “disgrace to his race” for litigating voting rights cases.  Sessions again did not deny the comment and further admitted that he called the Voting Rights Act of 1965 “intrusive”.  (Intrusive on what I wonder?  The rights of white people to oppress black people and other minorities?)

Not surprisingly, Sessions made other equally offensive comments:

• Sessions was heard by several colleagues commenting that  he “used to think they [the KKK] were ok” until he found out some of them were pot smokers.  Sessions claimed to be joking, not the first and only time he tried to sluff off his comments as jokes.
• U.S. Attorney in Alabama, Thomas Figures, testified that Sessions had called him “boy” and that after hearing him chastise a secretary Sessions warned him to “be careful what you say to white folks.”
• Figures echoed Hebert’s claims that Sessions called numerous civil rights organizations un-American including the National Council of Churches and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. ³

Bear in mind that Sessions never denied he made these comments but merely insisted he was joking.  At best Sessions showed an amazing degree of tactlessness and insensitivity and at worst demonstrated a decided bent toward racism.  In his own defense, Sessions insisted he could not be a racist because his children went to integrated schools and he had shared, on occasion, a hotel room with a black attorney….a defense which was quite typical and laughable.

Not only is Sessions not a new face he instead embodies the worst of everything wrong with the Republican Party.

I get the definite impression, in spite of what Michael Steele has said, that the Republican Party has no intention of attempting anything more than a facade of a makeover….the lipstick on a pig approach.

If you read Skyagunsta’s article The National Council for a New America, you discovered the “New America” and “new face” are represented by Jeb Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney.  Bobby Jindal also belongs to the group and is the only one even remotely new, but his ideology is decidedly the same old thing.  Did the party not learn anything from the disastrous administration of George W. Bush, which administration, in my opinion, was only marginally worse than his father’s, George H.W. Bush.  Why in the world would anyone in their right mind consider listening to yet another Bush?

It has been said that Sarah Palin is a new face for the Republicans and yet she represents the group that led the Republican Party down the garden path that landed them in the fix they are in now….the religious right.  Until the rightwing religious fundamentals are kicked out of the Republican Party’s bed we are not apt to see any significant change in the party.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the best we can expect from the Republican Party is a pretense of a makeover while it continues to embrace the same old ideology.  Quite frankly, that suits me just fine because the country has had enough of the “grand old party”.

¹Source

²Source

³Information and quotes from Closed Sessions