I've been away from the blogosphere for a day so I've been spending the last hour or so catching up. I notice that the air is full off all sorts of articles pointing out all the reasons why Charles Pickering should not be elevated to the appeals court. In fact, the last time I saw such a flurry of evidence of the racial problems of a white Republican it was the Trent Lott affair, and that led to the quick dismissal of Lott. Yet the Pickering story is being pretty much ignored. What's the difference? Well, it doesn't help that, unlike the Lott situation, none of the usual suspects on the right of the blogosphere (Glenn, Andy, etc.) are pretty much silent on these matters. Could it be that it wasn't so much Lott's attitudes that bugged these defenders of the right so much as the fact that he expounded on them so publicly? In other words, racists are accepted in the GOP fold, just so long as they stay in the closet.