The Reports about a Tennessee Republican staffer who is said to have e-mailed racist Obama "spook" photos, as well as the former South Carolina Republican official Rusty de Pass's reference to a gorilla as Michelle Obama's ancestor are not anything new coming from Republicans. This once great party of Abraham Lincoln has evolved into something Lincoln would not recognize were he to come back from the dead. The party has deteriorated over the years into a social group where a bunch of bigots and racist like David Duke,as well as racially insenstive people like Rush Limbaugh find a spiritual home. So these recent incidents of racial smears by Republican office-holders are without a shadow of doubt sadly a tale of a party immersed in a cesspool of racism and hate. The unfortunate thing is that the so-called GOP is a mainstream party, not a fringe one.