Last night, I was watching All In and Chris Hayes interviewed Michael Steele about something. I forget what it was exactly. The main thing is that Steele, as usual, had nothing insightful to say. Of course, that is his purpose on MSNBC: to act like a Republican who isn’t totally insane. But that’s his purpose everywhere. That is his claim to fame. And it is really an easy job. As I’ve written before, there is a huge affirmative action program going on for conservatives. People like S. E. Cupp and even George Will would never have become the media darlings they are if they were liberal. And that’s equally true of Steele.

At the end of the interview, Hayes reminded his viewers that Steele was once chairman of the Republican National Committee. It only occurred to me then what a nakedly cynical move that was by the Republican Party. It reminds me of a scene from O Brother, Where Art Thou? In it, Pappy O’Daniel is losing badly in his re-election bid to Homer Stokes who travels the state with a midget. Pappy’s son proposes that that get their own midget, but one that is even shorter. Pappy thinks this is a stupid idea, and says, “You slump-shouldered sack of nuts! Why, we’d look like a bunch of johnny-come-latelys. Bringing out our own midget. Don’t matter how stumpy!”

That is the level of thinking of the Republican Party. The Democrats elected the first black president. So the Republicans looked around for an African American—Any African American!—who they could put in the job. Of course, it didn’t work. Steele is a charming and capable man. But his pick was nakedly political. And it only made the Republicans look more racist, even if their real problem with Steele was that he wasn’t crazy.

Also last night, I got a chance to see another conservative affirmative action case. David Brooks was on the PBS Newshour. This is a standard thing. Normally they bring on a conservative and a moderate to discuss the week’s news. Why a moderate and not a liberal? Balance! Actually, it is because they think moderates are liberals. It is one of the many subtle ways that the media keep all discussions on a conservative footing. Brooks was paired with Ruth Marcus. And they talked about unemployment. Brooks pushed the old conservative canard: structural unemployment.

Let me explain: structural unemployment is a concept that allows conservatives to do nothing about high levels of unemployment. The idea is that people aren’t out of work because there are no jobs. All their jobs are being taken away by robots. And the new jobs require skills the people just don’t have. This is exactly the argument that was used by conservatives during the Great Depression. But somehow when demand returned due to the buildup for World War II, people did have the skills for jobs. Dean Baker explains all in an article this morning, Brooks and Marcus on PBS News: Getting Just About Everything Wrong on the Economy.

It’s true that the “liberal” didn’t come off looking great. She’s a Villager, what do you expect? But she isn’t a total idiot whose only skill is dressing up conservative talking points like Brooks (and for that matter Steele). Also, Brooks’ column yesterday was, The Neocon Revival. Stuff like this deserves to be buried deep in the Red State archives—not on the OpEd page of the New York Times, the PBS Newshour, or “liberal” MSNBC.