News reports, analysts, and pundits flooded networks and print media with accounts of the Romney interview. It was big news.

The most significant item was mentioned in the interview, but was lost in the covereage.

It was overridden by the hot, hot question raised by the interview. Will Mitt run again?

News focuses on the unusual. In another era, the confession would have dominated. Today, it is scarcely worth mentioning.

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It's the sort of thing that surfaces about every other week from regionally prominent Republicans. It represents a large proportion of a shrinking party.

Referring to people as anything other than human, with human feelings, with human worth, is wrong. It is wrong when the target is a black, or gay, or immigrant. The fact that this was not as widely recognized 60 years ago does not make it any more right.

Such ways of of talking and thinking come from those who are so used to the reinforcement of those of like mind, some political figures imagine the policies they espouse, and the terms they use to describe their own thoughts, will find the same approval from the general public.

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104 former Republican office holders have joined to oppose the election of Republican governor Sam Brownback.

Republican Senator Pat Roberts might squeak by to re-election with a fraction of the vote, if Republicans can get opponents to divide between two other candidates.

But Republicans have nothing to worry about. After this election, Kansas voters will always stay Republican. Really, they will.

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Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS) has been attacked, among other reasons, for no longer being a resident of Kansas. His declared residence turns out to be the home of supporters in Dodge City. He pays them rent.

As a voter, I'm okay with facing reality. Maintaining a full time residence here in Missouri while attending to a full time job in Washington is an untenable requirement. My bet is I'd feel the same way if I lived next door in Kansas.

But the insistence that our Representatives must work for us in Washington but can't live there continues. It doesn't happen every election season. Just enough to be an irritant.

I thought again it all again as I read about another scandal brewing in Maryland. The state gives tax breaks to residents. Tax officials are investigating whether a public official committed a crime by claiming to be a full time resident.

Now I have to rethink whether the Housing deal should always be a non-issue.

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Mo Brooks and his assertion that white people are suffering as a result of minority advancement, not as a result of a playing field tilted toward the wealthy, comes from a zero-sum view of the world. That view is as common in history as influenza. It is especially identified with conservative reactions to every surge of progress since slavery days.

It isn't hard to exploit that view, especially when it is reinforced by an economy that has been slowed by a Congress dominated by the enemies of equality. A war against white people is a powerful lie to those who feel the effects of economic hardship.

Most analysts seem to think Democrats will win electorally just by waiting for outraged minorities, and those white people whose sensibilities are offended, to reach a combined majority.

A more immediate remedy may be a full throated expression of the truth. We ought to point out the truth because it is the right thing to do. In this case, it is also the smart thing to do.

A responsible populism on behalf of those working hard and still hurting would be justly aimed against those who dominate the halls of power and influence. A powerful falsehood can sometimes be met by a powerful truth.

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The idea that opposition to the President is a natural result of some flaw in his own policy or personality is counter to documented evidence.

On the very night of President Obama's first inauguration, a group of top Republican lawmakers and strategists met. The country was in peril, teetering on the edge of a mammoth economic depression rivaling that of Herbert Hoover.

Hours into the new presidency, the conservative group decided to bring Obama down, no matter what it took. They determined they would obstruct, in every way possible, anything and everything the new President would ever, could ever, propose. It did not matter what, they would oppose it.

The newest mantra from the base is coming slowly to the surface of public discussion in Republican circles. This time, impeachment needs nothing more than a vague sense that something is wrong. There are no specifics. But the feeling is strong that all of the debunked scandals must still contain something of substance: Benghazi, the IRS, Obamacare, the economic bailout, something has to provide grounds for removal from office. The impostor must be turned out.

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The idea that opposition to the President is a natural result of some flaw in his own policy or personality is counter to documented evidence.

On the very night of President Obama's first inauguration, a group of top Republican lawmakers and strategists met. The country was in peril, teetering on the edge of a mammoth economic depression rivaling that of Herbert Hoover.

Hours into the new presidency, the conservative group decided to bring Obama down, no matter what it took. They determined they would obstruct, in every way possible, anything and everything the new President would ever, could ever, propose. It did not matter what, they would oppose it.

The newest mantra from the base is coming slowly to the surface of public discussion in Republican circles. This time, impeachment needs nothing more than a vague sense that something is wrong. There are no specifics. But the feeling is strong that all of the debunked scandals must still contain something of substance: Benghazi, the IRS, Obamacare, the economic bailout, something has to provide grounds for removal from office. The impostor must be turned out.

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Racism, to conservatives, is primarily a rhetorical weapon. It is no more than an arrow in the quiver of the enemy. It is the perennial false charge, unfairly made against good, solid American people, many of whom have best friends who are black. It is a double edged sword, one to be turned against those liberals whenever the opportunity comes. After all, only racists play the race card, accusing good folks of racism.

The featured speaker at pro-confederacy conferences, rousing cheers from those longing for the good old days, lights up another leg on the path to the future. Accusations of racism are not only to be themselves condemned. Those using them are to be banished.

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Andrew Breitbart made a name for himself by editing a video to make it appear that an Agriculture official was saying the opposite of what she said.

Breitbart, before dying of a heart attack, went on to post heavily edited videos of others. A couple of University professors here in St. Louis lost their jobs. They were made to seem to say things they did not actually say.

Andrew Breitbart has gone to the Great Beyond. But breitbarting lives, having become a bit of a conservative art form.

Christiane Amanpour, Norah O’Donnell, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf, the Environmental Protection Agency have all been breitbarted. Self-proclaimed Christian historian David Barton even breitbarts the founding fathers, editing documents to mean the opposite of what they actually say.

Now the slice and dice video distortion technique is being used by conservatives on each other.

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Senator Cochran survived by appealing to non-traditional participants in Republican primary elections. He asked black voters to help him win. And so he won.

Chris McDaniel cried foul. He refused to concede. In fact, he promises to go to court over the vote.

Thanks to illegal voting from liberal Democrats, my opponent stole last week’s runoff election, but I’m not going down without a fight.

- Chris McDaniel, in a mass email, July 2, 2014

Slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, housing, voting are issues that echo into today's reality. For all the sleight of hand, everyone knows how the shell game has been played. Racial Conservatives have moved from one shell to another, from the Democratic Party of old to the Republican Party of today and tomorrow.

Plantation, conservative at heart, Party of Lincoln. The arguments vanish in the wind as outraged conservatives make a new case for truth. It is the truth that was already apparent.

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