It's been a pleasure these past several months watching the Republican Party literally come unhinged.  The glory days of McSame/Failin, the post-election Republican intraparty cannibalizing, George W. Bush's infantile hijacking of Blair House, the Republican opposition to the stimulus followed immediately by their praising of the bill when speaking in their home districts, Michele Bachmann's latest tour of her very own alternate reality...it's all blended together into one lovely, non-stop, red-tinged funnel headed straight for the cesspool of political irrelevance.

Fortunately, just as one neoconservative finishes a smoldering wreck against the granite face of reality, another is on hand to treat us to a mind-blowing display of buffoonery. 

Today's comic relief is brought to you by none other than Michael Steele, the new RNC chairman.  In an interview with the Washington Times, flagged by Politico's Ben Smith, Steele has pulled back the Iron Curtain to give us all a peek at his strategy for rescuing the Grand Old Party from Whigland.

...Steele plans an "off the hook" public relations offensive to attract younger voters, especially blacks and Hispanics, by applying the party's principles to "urban-suburban hip-hop settings."

Yo, Chairman...as Bill Lumbergh might have said:  "Did you see the memo about this?"  Never mind the now-passe "off the hook".  We'll let that slide. 

Your party wreaked havoc on minorities for years.  So, now you plan to dress up the same nonsense (think "the government never created a single job") in G-Unit branding and sell it?  BRILLIANT!  You can start on the South Side of Chicago.  Good luck with that.

And I'm sure that the Hispanics who left the Republican ledger in droves last November are looking forward to John Cornyn appearing in Dickies, driving a candied-out low rider '65 Chevy, campaigning at the local bodegas down in Texas.

Really, what else could Steele possibly be inferring other than to try and present the same tired neocon ideology - somehow - with a "minority-friendly" PR attack?

Oh, but wait....there's MORE!  Here's how Steele plans to win back the mid-Atlantic seaboard:

"We need messengers to really capture that region - young, Hispanic, black, a cross section ... We want to convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles. But we want to apply them to urban-surburban hip-hop settings."

At this point, I was rolling around in laughter.  Thoughts of Sarah Palin in Baby Phat and Dick Cheney in Rocawear stumping together through Charlotte and Richmond leapt to mind. 

The very image, in fact, had me so overcome with guffawing that I almost missed this nugget of "compassionate conservatism".

But, [Steele] elaborated with a laugh, "we need to uptick our image with everyone, including one-armed midgets."

Yeah, that'll do it.  Maybe they can get Daddy Yankee to cut the ad to appeal to that demographic.  Let him write his own ad copy, too. 

It's not your messengers, Mr. Steele.  It's your message.

This sort of cosmetic nonsense is nothing more than a continuation of John McCain's "thinking" in selecting a vice-presidential nominee and the RNC's "thinking" in selecting a chairman.  Such lunkheaded stupidity bodes well for the Democrats.  Steele inherited a rotting corpse of a political party.  His big revival idea is to spritz it with Axe body spray, get it dressed in "Weekend at Bernie's" style, and take it out for a night on the town. 

And here I thought Steele wasn't quite as loopy as Ken Blackwell or Chip Saltsman.  Guess I was wrong about that.