Last week, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus compared President Obama to the Italian cruise ship captain who is being held on possible manslaughter charges for the death of 17 people. Priebus then doubled down on his
January 31, 2012

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Last week, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus compared President Obama to the Italian cruise ship captain who is being held on possible manslaughter charges for the death of 17 people. Priebus then doubled down on his comparison on Faux News.

And Tuesday on Morning Joe, Jack Kingston (W-GA) lamely claimed that Priebus was an "independent contractor" -- and defended his remarks.

BRZEZINSKI: That was disgusting. I'm sorry -- take it back. You all screwed up in a big way. You sat in a room and said, "Oh, this would be so cool to say. Ha, ha, ha." You slapped your knees and then you went out on the air and you spit that you, you vomited that out, and you made a fool of yourself. Does anyone want to add anything?

KINGSTON: I don't know that you can say that was anything but an independent contractor using his own words and his own writing.

Just how exactly is the Chairman of the RNC an "independent contractor"?

Then Kingston defended Priebus.

KINGSTON: There is name-calling there, and I don't appreciate the name-calling anymore than you do. However, there is also a point under it. The president does, in the State of the Union address, kind of revert back to kind of a lot of small ball items and isn't really handling the big issues of the day. Right now on the payroll tax cut, which isn't a huge deal, seems to be his biggest focus...

So, because the GOP didn't like Obama's State of the Union address, he's just like an incompetent, cowardly Italian cruise ship captain who is being held on possible charges for manslaughter? That has to be the lamest defense of a character assassination I've ever seen.

But that's Republicans for you. They don't back down, and they don't apologize -- and the media lets them get away with it. It's difficult to imagine the non-stop wingnut ragegasm that would've erupted if Howard Dean had said something like this about George W. Bush in 2004.

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