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As if it is not enough that they have been decimated by the Democrats in the past couple of elections, the Republican survivors are now turning their guns on each other.

At the heart of these internal battles have been attacks on Rush Limbaugh by Republicans who imagine themselves to be so much more sophisticated because they are so much more in step with the political fashions of the time.

The cheap shot that Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele fired at Limbaugh's program, calling it "ugly," set off the latest round of in-fighting. Regular listeners to the Limbaugh program or subscribers to the Limbaugh newsletter know that both contain far more factual information and in-depth analysis than from pundits with a more ponderous tone.

Why Steele found it necessary to say such a thing -- except as a sop to the liberal intelligentsia -- is one of the many mysteries of the Republican Party. Steele has since apologized to Limbaugh, but you cannot unring the bell.

More important, the mindset it betrays is at the heart of many of the problems of the Republican Party, going back for years.

Weak-kneed Republicans

There has long been an element of the Republican Party that has felt a need to distance themselves from people who stand up for conservative principles, whether those with principles have been Ronald Reagan, Rush Limbaugh or whomever.

The latest example is John McCain's daughter, who has said how embarrassed she is by having to explain Ann Coulter to her friends. If it wasn't for articulate conservatives like Coulter, both the Republican Party and the country would be in even worse shape than they are now, for there are extremely few articulate Republican politicians who can make the case for any principle. Certainly Meghan McCain's father is not one of them.

The only time John McCain led Barack Obama in the polls last year was after Gov. Sarah Palin joined the ticket.

McCain would have had no chance at all with another inconsistent and inarticulate Republican like himself on the ticket. Yet many in the Republican Party seem to have felt as embarrassed by Palin as they have been by others who articulated principles, instead of trying to be in step with the fashions of the time -- fashions set by liberals.

There has been an undercurrent among some Republicans that it is time to move away from the image of Ronald Reagan, to update the party and court less embarrassing segments of the voters than their current base.

There is certainly a lot to be said for inviting wider segments of the population to join you, by explaining how your principles benefit the country. But that is fundamentally different from abandoning your principles in hopes of attracting new votes with opportunism.

Democrats using blacks

No segment of the population has lost more by the agendas of the liberal constituencies of the Democratic Party than the black population.

The teachers' unions, environmental fanatics and the ACLU are just some of the groups to whose interests blacks have been sacrificed wholesale. Lousy education and high crime rates in the ghettos, and unaffordable housing elsewhere with building restrictions, are devastating prices to pay for liberalism.

Yet the Republicans have never articulated that argument, and their opportunism in trying to get black votes by becoming imitation Democrats has failed miserably.

There seemed, for an all too brief moment, that Michael Steele might have been the one to provide such overdue articulation -- and possibly he still might, but only if he stays out of the Republican trap of trying to appease opponents by throwing supporters to the wolves.

 Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His Web site is www.tsowell.com.