It's not often these kind of things get said out loud (at a large public dinner no less), that conservatives consider blacks as token hires, but I guess anything goes these days. Michael Steele, who was there in attendance, was not amused. Steele still insists these people do not represent real Republicans, real conservatism. Sorry Mike, that's exactly who they are.

Source: The Hill

Former Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman Michael Steele on Friday blasted a comment from a Conservative Political Action Conference spokesman in which the CPAC official said that the RNC picked Steele to lead the party because "he was a black guy."

"I wanted to talk to [CPAC chair] Matt Schlapp first, but I think it’s painfully stupid what he said," Steele told the Observer when asked about a remark CPAC communications director Ian Walters made at a dinner during the conference.

"If he feels that way I’d like him to come say that to my face," Steele added. "And then I’d like him to look at my record and see what I did. I can’t believe an official of CPAC would go onstage in front of an audience and say something like that. I’ve been a strong supporter of CPAC for many years and I thought they raised them better than that here."

In a speech at CPAC's Ronald Reagan dinner on Friday, Walters reportedly criticized Republican thinking surrounding the decision to pick Steele to lead the RNC.

“We elected Mike Steele as chairman because he was a black guy, that was the wrong thing to do,” Walters said in a comment reportedly met with gasps.