This week John Sununu continued his campaign to be the most vile man in American politics by saying that Colin Powell was endorsing President Obama because they were both black. You know those two modern day black panthers with their shuck and jive shtick. They’ve got that whole deep-seated hatred for white people thing going on.

Colin Powell’s former chief of staff Col. Lawrence Wilkerson said the obvious on The Ed Show Friday: most of the people in his (Republican) party are racists. That’s about right. It is a stunning bit of video however; it is so rare to seen anyone in politics be so candid:

Let me clarify this observation. Most of the time, racism isn’t an active hatred of one group. Instead, it is assuming the best of “us” and assuming the worst of “them.” That’s what the whole birth certificate nonsense is all about. A couple of months ago I was talking to a conservative who claimed that he didn’t know if Obama was a United States citizen. He claimed that he had never seen his birth certificate, so he just didn’t know; he wasn’t saying anything one way or another. I noted that he had never seen the birth certificates of any other presidents but he never questioned their citizenship. This, of course, caused some desperate face saving about how maybe he should have done that.

This is a case of racism. It isn’t hatred. It is just being naturally suspicious of black people. And this is the kind of racism that the Republican Party is overflowing with. There is a lot of it in the Democratic Party too, but it is nowhere near as powerful an element. In many places, racism is the main thing the Republicans have on offer.

Nothing will happen to Sununu, of course. I think the mainstream media just accept that much of the draw of the Republican Party is subtle and not so subtle racist appeals. So they will continue to note when a particular Republican steps over the obviousness line and says something that is clearly racist. But otherwise, they will continue to pretend that poor southern whites still vote Republican because they really believe in more corporate welfare and less Social Security.