When a mainstream website like Real Clear Politics, which happens to be a joint venture of Time and CNN, calls what liberal blogger Bil Browning did, a smear, a lie and despicably racist, then you know what was done to Chairman Steele crosses the line of civility.

Via Real Clear Politics:

Michael Steele has said some dumb things in his brief tenure as GOP Chairman (”one armed midgets” and “slum love” spring to mind) for which he’s rightly been criticized.

But this post by Bil Browning (self-described LGBT blogger and new media consultant) of the Huffington Post is just an out and out smear: Steele: GOP woos blacks with “fried chicken and potato salad.”

Watch the clip and listen closely. A young gay blogger (who Browning also describes as a person of color) asks Michael Steele about his future plans for the “inclusion of diverse populations in the Republican party.”

Steele responds: “My plan is to say, Y’all come. Cause a lot of you are already here.”

Steele’s response generates some laughter, but off camera you can hear someone (though almost certainly the blogger who asked the question) say, “I’ll bring the collard greens.”

This generates more laughter among the group, as well as Steele’s genial response: “There you go. I got the fried chicken and the potato salad, okay?

Put in it’s proper context, Steele’s remarks are a far cry from Browning’s headline or his assertion that “to lure African-Americans into the GOP, Steele is offering “fried chicken and potato salad.”

It’s just an out and out lie. And a despicably racist one at that.

(H/T – Fort Wayne News)