Max Blumenthal shines the spotlight on Tony Perkins, Family Research Council President and Friend of Frist. [Note: the Family Research Council, founded by James Dobson, held a little "Justice Sunday" fest last weekend — where Bill Frist spoke via tape — in which they complained that the Democratic filibuster of Bush’s judicial nominees was an attack on faith and religion]. Blumenthal writes in the Nation:

Four years ago, Perkins addressed the Louisiana chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), America’s premier white supremacist organization, the successor to the White Citizens Councils, which battled integration in the South. In 1996 Perkins paid former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke $82,000 for his mailing list. At the time, Perkins was the campaign manager for a right-wing Republican candidate for the US Senate in Louisiana. The Federal Election Commission fined the campaign Perkins ran $3,000 for attempting to hide the money paid to Duke.

Would Jesus pay 82K to a Klansman?

Sounds like Perkins has less of a problem with white robes than he does with black ones.

— from Roger Ailes

And while we are talking about the Family Research Council’s Klan connections, why not put the spotlight on their hypocrisy on the filibuster issue:

MSNBC host Keith Olbermann noted that the Family Research Council (FRC), which is currently campaigning to stop filibusters of President Bush’s judicial nominees by Senate Democrats, was quite vocal in the late 1990s in defending the right to filibuster another presidential nominee, James C. Hormel, who was nominated by President Clinton as ambassador to Luxembourg.