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Beltway Blogroll reported earlier this week that RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman will be one of the participants in the new blog at GOP.com. He made his first post two days later, pointing readers to his apology, on behalf of the Republican Party, for a history of trying to benefit politically from racial polarization.

"Some Republicans gave up on winning the African American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization," he told the NAACP. "I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong."

Well, the apology does not appear to have taken in some blogging circles, where critics are echoing the reaction of DNC Chairman Howard Dean. "When you insist on keeping the gains of your evil acts, you are not sorry," Bread and Circuses concluded. "Republican dominance in the South came as a result of racist appeals; as long as the successors to those segregationists do little or nothing to see blacks achieve social, political, and economic equality, the apology is a lie."

The Republic of T. said the apology rings hollow because several Senate Republicans recently did not endorse an apology for not doing enough to stop the lynchings of blacks in U.S. history. "Mehlman's apology is not just too little, too late. It's also an insult because they're not sorry. After all, it helped get them to where they are today -- by appealing to the very worst in human nature."

And Windy City Watch said if the GOP wants to prove its sincerity in apologizing for the "Southern strategy" to gain political power, the party should distance itself from conservative talkmeister Rush Limbaugh, who characterized Mehlman's NAACP apology as "absolutely absurd."

Not all bloggers were so critical, though. Cracker Squire praised Mehlman, and Georgia Politics Unfiltered said Democrats should consider the GOP's desire to court black voters as a warning not to take them for granted.

The Texas Whip challenged the mistrust of Mehlman. "Melhman's apology was sincere," contributor Tyler Norton wrote, "and Tyler hopes that the Republicans will hold fast to his word."

But Norton added that President Bush needs to end his five-year run of not speaking to the NAACP. "Is it any wonder that the black vote doesn't support Bush and his policies if the president won't take the time to even meet with the largest black group in the nation?"

Posted by dglover at July 16, 2005 07:26 PM

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Comments

Mehlman's apology is almost believable until one remembers that the GOP is still benefiting from appealing to white southern racism and hording the political gains from that bigoted stratergy.
Then he proves that the GOP still doesn't get it when he refers to that recently popular (but false) label - "...the party of Lincoln."
In order to gain the admiration and loyalty of
southern white bigots, they have had to transform
the GOP into the "party of Jefferson Davis."
In this they have done a marvelous job.
Thank God for southern white "open minds."
F.H. Virginia

Posted by: Fred Hinson at July 18, 2005 04:57 PM

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