“This guy’s name is Tom Perez and he may as well be Hugo Chavez, and that is not an exaggeration,” Limbaugh began, saying Perez was “the guy in the Department of Justice in the civil rights division who made the call not to prosecute the New Black Panthers.” Limbaugh said listeners should imagine George W. Bush nominating someone who didn’t prosecute the Ku Klux Klan when they engaged in voter intimidation. “And then after not prosecuting klanners for that, then imagine what would happen if Bush turned around and nominated the Grand Kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan to a cabinet position where he would be deciding on discrimination lawsuits,” he said. “There would be unmitigated hell to pay – if George W. Bush put a klansman in his cabinet there would be hell to pay, that’s essentially what’s happened here.”

Well, first of all, Thomas Perez is to the Ku Klux Klan what Mother Teresa is to Rush Limbaugh. And the fact that he made the comparison at all says more about Limbaugh than it does about Perez.

As for the comparison to Hugo Chavez, I'll let former GOP chairman Michael Steele weigh in:



“I think we just need to be a little more tempered here,” Steele said. “I just don’t see a basis for, you know, Chavez? How did we jump to that? Oh, because he’s Hispanic? Oh, got it, got it, alright. Again, you can’t take that seriously, and that’s what the American people are tired of, quite frankly.”

To be fair to Limbaugh, Steele is African-American, so of course he would defend Perez, who as a Latino and a civil rights champion , obviously shares Steele's utter contempt for white people. What's worse, Steele probably think the actions of those New Black Panthers in that 2008 Fox video don't come close to comparing with what the Klan has done throughout American history, so you simply can't take what he says seriously.

Sure, I know that Steele and Perez worked together in Maryland, and I know that Steele says Perez would be a good labor secretary, but you have to be careful about how you interpret that. Steele probably would try to convince you that his first-hand experience with Perez gives him a valuable insight on the nomination, but as any faithful listener of Rush Limbaugh could tell you, the fact that Steele is vouching for Perez is just proof that minorities like to stick together—especially if it gives them a chance to screw over whites.

In light of Rush Limbaugh's courageous decision to speak out against President Obama's nomination of a Latino to his cabinet, Limbaugh listeners might be worried about the GOP's new autopsy which argues that right-wing media personalities like Limbaugh's are ruining the GOP brand and poisoning conservative minds. But the good news for them is this: no matter what some dumb GOP report says, virtually all Republican politicians will be standing by to protect their base from President Obama's virulent brand of Venezuelan racism.