Several of my more conservative friends, including some who contribute regularly to the Eccentric, have taken me to task of late for my October, 2009, column on "Fear, Loathing, and the 21st Century GOP."

One thought I'd written that George Wallace was a Republican. For the record, George wasn't . . . and I didn't say he was.

What I did say was that Richard Nixon's GOP made a conscious decision to court his supporters, did so effectively, and the modern party has been stuck with the worst of them ever since.

Another pointed out, with understandable distress, that he, and several of his friends, thought I had labeled them, and their party, racist. For the record, they aren't . . . and I didn't . . . or, at least, didn't mean to.

What I did say (apparently not very well) was that, while most Republicans are not racist, unfortunately most self-described American racists tend to be Republicans.

Indeed, every reputable statistical analysis of regional, national and local voting patterns since 1972 confirms that, for some reason, what is now the 21st Century GOP attracts disproportionate numbers of several dying breeds of such truly mean-spirited people: a distressingly outspoken, irrational anti-black, anti-Semitic, anti-brown, anti-gay, anti-science, and anti-rational minority.

Unfortunately for my conservative Republican friends, and to the embarrassment of those who are neither racist nor mean-spirited, the rantings of such people now threaten to re-brand the party of Nixon and Bush as something even less appealing than it was during those ill-fated administrations.

Worse, by continuing to court and embrace such people, and by helping them articulate their prejudices in language that is both politically correct and rhetorically effective, the 21st Century GOP empowers them.

Some card-carrying conservative Republicans, like David Frum and many of the friends who feared I libeled them, have the good sense and good grace to worry about it . . . and say so.

God bless 'em. They should . . . do both.