I see, via Pam Spaulding, that David Duke is all worked up about the GOP selecting Michael Steele, a black man, as the party chair:

GOP traitors appoint Obama Junior as Chairman of the Republican Party

I am glad these traitorous leaders of the Republican Party appointed this Black racist, affirmative action advocate to the head of the Republican party because this will lead to a huge revolt among the Republican base. As a former Republican official, I can tell you that millions of rank-and-file Republicans are mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore! We will either take the Republican Party back over the next four years or we will say, "To Hell With the Republican Party!" And we will take 90 percent of Republicans with us into a New Party that will take its current place!

I think the insanity of nominating "Mr. Amnesty" John McCain and now this Black racist - will lead to insurgency in the Republican ranks, and a lot of dissidents getting elected in Republican Party primaries around the country. This will result over the next four years a real move by millions of Republicans to take the party back to the populist issues that are not only right but can win for the Republican Party. We must end affirmative action, protect our gun rights and all our constitutional rights, have a moratorium on immigration, we must have protectionism, yes I said protect American businesses and their workers from NAFTA and GATT and the lie of free trade, and we must have America First, not foreign interventionism. Our boys should be home protecting the American borders a not being murdered on the borders of Iraq or Afghanistan. The time as come for Republican Party to stand up to Obama and defend American heritage, rights, and freedom!

...Let's make this abomination in the Republican Party, the last major party of White redoubt, as a rallying cry of resistance!

Well, Duke's predictive powers on these matters has never been very good (the Great White Awakening has been Just Around the Corner for many many years now).

To tell the truth, all this gnashing of neo-Nazi teeth reminds me of 2000, when Pat Buchanan, then running as the Reform Party candidate, named Ezola Foster his running mate -- at which Duke, along with Stormfront chief Don Black and WCOTC Pontifex Maximus Matthew Hale and just about every other white supremacist in the country, publicly switched his support to George W. Bush.

Now, it would be nice to imagine somehow that the GOP has indeed finally crawled out from under the shadow of the Southern Strategy and has left the fading cadre of racists in this country with no major party to call home. But I doubt it. No doubt the good ol' boys in places like South Carolina are sore at the Republican party right now, but I doubt that they're going to give up that easily. They sure as hell aren't just going away.

And in the face of that reality, it doesn't seem likely that Michael Steele is going to be the man who brings that change to the GOP. He gives them a nice Sidney Poitier-esque figurehead, but consider his real-life record (via Judd Legum) when it comes to such ethical matters -- especially those cases where racism raised its head:

-- Steele bused in homeless African Americans from Philadelphia to distribute literature in inner-city Baltimore that featured a “Sample Democratic Ballot” with votes for Steele and former Gov. Bob Ehrlich, along with photos of prominent black Democrats.

-- Steele defended former Gov. Bob Ehrlich’s decision to hold a $100,000 fundraiser at a country club that did not allow non-white members, saying that the club’s membership’s policies were “not an issue” because “I don’t play golf.”

I'm sure Duke is squawking because of the symbolic nature of Steele's selection. But the great likelihood is that's all it will be.