Thank you for ... what?!?!

The race-baiters at the White House had the sense to take down one offensive post. Sen. Bill Cassidy's offensively dumb attempt to address the issue remained.

NEW ORLEANS — So, I slept on it. Took a walk, had a late breakfast and my usual gallon of coffee. Then I came home and sat down to see if the offensive post was still there.

Yep. As of Saturday afternoon, it was still there.

Yes, even the race-baiters at the White House had the sense to eventually take down from Donald Trump’s social media feed a picture of former President Barack Obama and his wife, a post that employed one of America’s oldest, most offensive racist tropes. It was gone by Friday afternoon.

Still up, however, as of Saturday afternoon, right at the top of his Facebook page, was Sen. Bill Cassidy’s miserable attempt to address it without hurting anybody’s feelings:

“Thank you to President Trump for taking down the post about the Obamas. He made significant inroads with his outreach in the African American community which we need to continue. His post sent the wrong message despite how it may have been originally intended.”

“DESPITE HOW IT MAY HAVE BEEN ORIGINALLY INTENDED”?!?

As far as I can tell, our other U.S. senator, Speck Rhodes … Sorry. I meant to say John Kennedy (R-Hooterville) … has been silent on this, in keeping with his focus on more pressing concerns. Like making sure nobody hurts those poor, defenseless ICE agents who yank disabled people out of cars and shoot protesters to death.

Cassidy’s breaking of my great state’s senatorial silence on the issue is somehow worse. It draws more attention to Cassidy’s humiliating attempt to straddle the fence between MAGA cultists and the reasonable Republicans and no-party voters (like me) who might just consider holding their noses and voting for him in the upcoming GOP primary. It also intensifies the light on the near total moral collapse of the party of Lincoln, Eisenhower and Reagan; a party I was once comfortable voting for, in part because it once had prominent members who were brave enough to face the possible political consequences of demanding accountability from, say, Richard Nixon.

Is it too much to ask that our leaders consider the possibility that you can still identify with your party’s policy aims — reasonable immigration reform, smaller government, balanced budgets and all the other things Republicans at least used to be for — and still condemn blatant, obscene, infantile and racist posts by the head of their party?

I guess it is.

STILL WITH ME?

Robert Mann says some of the same stuff I’m saying, only better, here.

Meanwhle, I’m not planning on posting much in the next week or so. Got wedding anniversary, wife’s birthday and Mardi Gras coming up. Will kick the celebrations off, of course, by watching the SUPER BOWL HALFTIME SHOW with Bad Bunny, to see if any of my work trying to learn Spanish has paid off. (Duolingo says it’s not promising.)