Cyber Follies

RNC Facebook Fan Uploads Racist Photo

Obama picture captioned "Miscegenation Is a Crime."

Is the Republican Party just not Web savvy? First, their relaunched Web site was roundly mocked for being culturally tone-deaf in its attempt to catch the attention of a new wave of Republican youth. And now the Republican National Committee's Facebook page was recently caught featuring a photo of President Barack Obama gnawing on fried chicken above the tagline "Miscegenation Is a Crime Against American Values" and a call to repeal Loving v. Virginia, the landmark Supreme Court case that overturned laws banning interracial marriage. The image was posted last Tuesday by a fan, at the same time a Louisiana judge refused to wed a white woman and a black man. The image has since been removed, but the gaffe comes amid a number of online follies by GOP figures, including Young Republican Chairman Audra Shay’s racist Facebook note imbroglio and a series of offensive email forwards among low-level GOP organizers.