GOP Web Site Goes For Laughs

Even after her embarrassing "what papers do you read?" Couric debacle, Sarah Palin appears proudly and defiantly to have learned nothing.

The new GOP Web site says a lot more about the true nature of the Republican party than they would have liked. Marc Ambinder presents "Top Ten Reasons Why The GOP Website Relaunch Is Fizzlin'":

1. In a section devoted to "future leaders," there were none.
2. In the subsequent rush to get up a "future leaders" page, they choose "you."
3. The last GOP accomplishment cited on the accomplishment page was from 2004.
4. The what's up page -- hip! starts with this sentence: "the internet has been around for a while now"
5. Administrator passwords were accidentally posted.
6. When the RNC hosted a kick-off conference call, the website was down.
7. The website cites Jackie Robinson as a GOP hero. Robinson wasn't a GOPer, and he criticized the GOP on race. Robinson left the party because of its views on race. He had been, as a reader points out, a Republican for many years.
8. The first question on the conference call was from an Hispanic Republican who asked why the GOP site didn't have a Spanish-language page and noted that the White House had one.
9. Bragging about web redesigns is so 2004.
10. It's not timed with the start of any major advocacy campaign -- or political campaign. And it portrays itself as something it's not: diverse and ready to embrace new ideas. That may be what the party leadership aspires to, but, at least when it comes to diversity, a few pictures of Hispanics and African Americans doesn't make up for ... well, the history of the party.

Apart from all that, we're cool.

As a side note, am I alone in finding the Republican penchant for trumpeting century-old achievements intellectually disingenuous? True, the Republicans were the black folks' party back in the 19th century, hence the African-American flavor of the GOP's "Republican Heroes" page. But at a time when the southern 'Dixiecrats' were effectively the political arm of the KKK, this would be like the German Communist party boasting they had more Jewish supporters than the Nazis.

Are we really dumb enough to assume the RNC and the DNC represent the same ideas they did 100, 50 or even 20 years ago? Apparently, Michael Steele hopes we are.