Over at The Skepticians, James Richardson examines a Christmas gift from Chip Saltsman – an aspirant to the RNC chairmanship – to the various members of the committee. It’s a tasteful gift, providing we remember that “taste” runs a wide range, including “poor.”

In an exercise of political suicide, Republican National Committee Chair hopeful Chip Saltsman distributed a controversial CD by conservative satirist Paul Shanklin to national committee members this month for Christmas.

First played on Rush Limbaugh’s popular, though often taboo, radio show, the 41-track CD, entitled “We Hate the USA,” featured the racially-charged song “Barack the Magic Negro.” After all, nothing says “Christmas” like racial insensitivity…

Advancing a woefully intolerant agenda may help the Party in Saltsman’s back yard, Tennessee, but it stands to reason that it will further marginalize moderates, independents, and the few remaining African American Republicans.

Read Richardson’s full entry for the entire story on Saltsman, but I shall mostly leave that for another day. Suffice to say that Chip should probably abandon his plans to chair the RNC and keep his head down for a while. For me, this story serves as yet another reminder of the nagging question as to why Republicans and conservatives in general continue to keep Rush Limbaugh’s ship afloat. On the day that the song premiered, Rush apparently uttered the phrase in question more than two dozen times over the course of the broadcast. (For the record, the phrase originally cropped up in the L.A. Times, which should be equally scorned.) It’s the sort of thing one unfortunately expects when tuning in to Saturday Night Live or The Daily Show. But isn’t Rush supposed to be a serious political commentator for the conservative Right wing? From his earlier substance abuse problems to incident after incident such as this, Rush has long since become an embarrassment to the party and the conservative movement in general. And yet his ratings remain strong and he garners the support of many GOP pundits and politicians. Why? Is this really how Republicans wish to have themselves portrayed? Is there some case to be made that referring to Obama as “the magic Negro” is acceptable under any circumstances?

Some of you are conservatives, surely. So tell us… how is this guy still on the air?