In case you were away on vacation to Mars and out of Twitter range thus missing it, the latest Tennessee Republican racist brain fart has gone national, and once again puts Tennessee in the not-so-flattering spotlight.

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At first blush, it's just more of the same old same old from Tennessee Republicans, who seem to view this kind of stuff as less of an embarrassment and more of an election strategy.

As desensitized as we may have become, owing to the unfortunate frequency of this sort of thing, it IS an embarrassment. And worse, an insult to the people of this state. We can only hope that all the corporate relocation consultants were on vacation to Mars and missed it.

One interesting point. Michael Silence posted the email headers shortly after the story broke yesterday. Note the date of the email - May 28th. Note that one of the recipients was Matt King. Matt King is the chief of staff for Sen. Ron Ramsey (R-Blountville), Senate Speaker, Lt. Governor, and Republican candidate for governor.

Lt. Gov. Ramsey waited until today (June 16th) to issue any kind of statement. And his only statement was that the written reprimand "punishment" issued to her staffer by Sen. Diane Black was adequate and appropriate. And that's that. (I guess that should come as no surprise, since the "blackbird mailer" smearing of House candidate Nathan Vaughn up there in his district was apparently appropriate, too.)

Waiting nearly a month to say anything suggests that a) Ramsey's chief of staff didn't see a problem so he didn't mention it, b) he did mention it but Ramsey didn't think it was any big deal, c) Ramsey has a tin ear when it comes to politics, which doesn't reflect well on his leadership abilities as a potential governor, or d) Ramsey only said something because a blogger exposed it to the light of day, forcing a reaction.

In fact, the email went out to at least seventeen Tennessee Senate Republican Caucus staffers, yet none of them appears to have brought it to the attention of their bosses in the state Republican leadership, or if they did their bosses didn't think it was a big deal.

Oh, and the TNGOP has yet to weigh in on, much less condemn, the email. Or the fact that the email was sent by a state government employee on state government time from a state government computer to other state government email addresses (all paid for by state taxpayers), all of whom work in the Legislative Plaza where our elected representatives are supposed to be representing ALL Tennessee citizens, black, brown, white, or otherwise.

Anyway, in the big scheme of things (such as Tennessee's as yet unresolved $1 billion budget shortfall) it may not be a big deal. The problem is, it's a pattern. It's a pattern going back to the Corker "Call Me" ad, the TNGOP "Obama is a Muslim anti-Semitic" attack ad and the "ashamed to be an American" attack on his wife (both of which gained national notoriety to the embarrassment of Tennessee), the "blackbird mailer," the Chip Saltsman "Barack the Magic Negro" Christmas CD (another national hit), and on and on and on.

And it has distracted attention from the real problems in our state, such as that aforementioned $1 billion budget shortfall, more than a million without health care, 10% unemployment, and the tragic inability for residents to carry their guns with them into bars and onto little league playgrounds.

At any rate, props to Newscoma for breaking the story.

P.S. There have been calls for the termination of Sen. Diane Black's assistant, Sherri Goforth, a twenty year employee, for forwarding the email. I have mixed feelings about that. Perhaps a better response would be a week or two suspension without pay to give her time to reflect, plus some mandatory sensitivity training. In my view, it's a "teaching moment" opportunity to turn someone around v. making them a right-wing martyr.

UPDATE: Liberadio: Resetting the Tone at the Capitol

Please urge Senator Black to grab hold of this moment, get creative, and work with other members of the General Assembly to send the message to their staffers that racism - no matter how casual - is not OK.