Much has been made today in the blogs of the first few moments of Michael Steele illustrating once again his death wish for his career and his party.

Steele's new motto for the GOP is apparently "Y'all Come," and when an audience member offered to "bring the [undecipherable picnic item]", Steele rejoined with "I'll bring the fried chicken and potato salad."

Just how tone deaf on issues of race does one have to be to be both African American and GOP Chairman? At least that much. Wow.

But there's more. The topic his questioner posed, a generic query regarding "inclusion," Steele read to mean primarily racial inclusion. The blogger asking did not announce himself as a GLBT blogger, but clearly inclusion can mean all kinds of folks, and Steele in his answer included "orientation" as part of the GOP big tent, and cited Reagan (don't they all) as a model of inclusivity in the "Y'all Come" Republican mentality. Really.

Somehow The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and other front-liners in the fight against AIDS don't see Reagan's inclusive legacy the way Steele does.

And perhaps we should ask the other chairmen of the GOP, Rush Limbaugh, James Dobson, and Newt "gay and secular fascism" Gingrich how they feel about "Y'all come." Ahem.