BUT WE HAVE HIGHER STANDARDS IN OUR PARTY:

In fairness, my alarm bells would have been ringing off the hook if I received an invitation to speak before an organization run by Duke. [...]

What has struck me about the American media coverage I've been able to catch is that many are eager to paint the GOP as racist with a broad brush without any measure of perspective or introspection.  Scalise offered his contrition that he had made a mistake and apologized for appearing before a group some 12 years ago.  And yet The Washington Post's Dan Balz was quite eager to remind his readers that: "The Scalise episode...is more than a case of one politician and one event.  It is also a reminder of the complexities of race and politics in the Old and New South as that region has made a long transition from one-party Democratic rule a generation ago to today's one-party Republican dominance."  

As I reflected upon Balz's words, I couldn't help but remember another politician embroiled in his association with someone with not only with a racist past but one who continued to preach racism from the pews to the present day.  A politician who attended the congregation at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago for some 20 years, a man who referred to his Pastor as his second father--a Pastor who officiated his wedding and baptized his children. 

Yes, I'm referring to the association between Barack Obama and his since disavowed Pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright.  What I find ironic is that Scalise is being excoriated for one speech before one group in which the gentleman in question professed no knowledge of white supremacist ties--while the current occupant of the Oval Office had to have known about the racist invective Pastor Wright issued from his pulpit each Sunday.

Have you ever heard of the "Black Value System" adopted by the Trinity Church in 1981, some seven years before President Obama joined their congregation? Chances are you haven't, as I hadn't either.  Scrolling through this hate-filled manifesto for the first time made the hairs on my arm tingle with discomfort.  There is reference after reference to the "black community," "black worth ethic," and adherence to the "black value system."

Can you imagine the outrage if Representative Scalise had spoken before a group in Louisiana whose attendees vowed fealty to a "white value system?"  Calls for his resignation and an investigation from the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice would have been swift and immediately forthcoming.

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