Back To The Future Of The G.O.P.

(From the Contra Costa Times; found via BuzzFlash)

A leading candidate in the upcoming race for chairman of the California Republican Party distributed an article suggesting the nation would have been better off if the South had won the Civil War.

The article was included in a 1999 e-mail newsletter that state GOP Vice Chairman Bill Back sent to party members. It was written by Bill Lind, director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism, an arm of the right-wing Free Congress Foundation.

"Given how bad things have gotten in the old U.S.A., it's not hard to believe that history might have taken a better turn," Lind wrote. "... The real damage to race relations in the South came not from slavery, but from Reconstruction, which would not have occurred if the South had won."

Back was "a very active leader in the George W. Bush for President Campaign," according to the California G.O.P. The Free Congress Foundation is the tool of Paul Weyrich, the self-described Founding President of the Heritage Foundation. Weyrich's contribution to the Lott controversy was the following:

"The news media read far more into the statements than what Lott meant, which was a simple statement to honor a veteran Senator whose hallmark was anti-Communism and had adjusted to the post-Civil Rights South."

Post-Civil Rights South? You wish, Paul.