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Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Saturday asserted that a Phoenix program to hire more black and Latino lifeguards at public pools was the "same rationale that propped up Jim Crow for 80 years."

NPR last month reported that the city of Phoenix had set out to hire more minorities because more than 90 percent of the swimmers at some pools were black or Latino, but a majority of lifeguards were white.

On Saturday, Crystal Wright, editor of ConservativeBlackChick.com, snarked to Fox News that "if you're downing, you want to relate to a lifeguard that's going to save you, right guys?"

"Is there any social science evidence that shows that people don't want to be saved by people who have a different melanin content from they do?" Carlson wondered.

Wright said that Phoenix "would rather have people drown or risk drowning in our pools all in the name of diversity. It's the most perverse thing I've ever seen."

Co-host Alisyn Camerota pointed out that Phoenix had not said that children would be put in danger by diverse lifeguards, but that the program would help overcome a language barrier for Latino children with poor English skills.

"I'm a black American, I have no language barrier with a white person," Wright replied. "I'm talking to you and Tucker right now, we seem to be speaking English."

"This is the same rationale that propped up Jim Crow for 80 years, right?" Carlson opined. "You want to swim in a pool with people who look like you. You want to sit in the same bus or the same movie theater or use the same water fountain as people who look like you. It's diversity."

"Segregation," Wright agreed. "My parents grew up during segregation and they didn't really like to be on the beach and at pools and seeing white people be able to use a different beach. Phoenix is making no sense, and they're forcing some kind of segregation."

Wright added that the Phoenix program was not like former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's so-called "binders full of women," which she said was "common sense."

"Hispanics and blacks tend to not be as good swimmers as whites, and many more black Americans and Hispanics, actually those kids don't know how to swim," Wright concluded. "This is just putting -- it's not good."

(h/t: Media Matters)

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President Obama's second term hasn't started yet, but that didn't stop Stephen Colbert from already proclaiming it a disaster and bemoaning the the lack of diversity with some of his recent nominations to fill retirements in his cabinet. Never mind that over 40 percent of the President's appointees have been women.

As Karoli already noted here, all of this carping over the need for "more women in the cabinet" that Colbert was mocking in this segment has just been concern trolling on the media's part. Colbert was much too kind to MSNBC here, who deserved to be ripped for Scarborough's chauvinistic crap, and for having one segment after another for days on end about this stupid nonsense, that no one else besides the Villagers in the media gives a hoot about.

I'm a lot more concerned about their policies than I am whether they are men or women or what race. Unfortunately we're not going to get any liberal nominees for any of these positions no matter what race or sex they are. It does give the beltway talking heads something to wring their hands about though.

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As Rachel Maddow noted in the segment above, "This is what you can clip and save for the next time someone in the beltway tells you how seriously the Republican party is taking its diversity problem this year."

House GOP Committee Chairs Will All Be White Men In Next Congress:

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced who will chair all of the major House committees in the next Congress. And it turns out they all have something in common besides party affiliation: they're all white men.

There isn't a single woman or minority included in the mix of 19 House committee chairs announced Tuesday -- a stark reality for a party desperate to appeal to women and minorities after both groups overwhelmingly rejected Republicans just weeks ago in the presidential election. The one female committee chair that House Republicans currently have, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), is stepping down because her term is up. While there are still two lower-tier House committees awaiting a chair assignment -- the Ethics Committee and House Administration -- neither committee has any women or minority members.

At least one Senate Democrat was quick to point out that something is missing from the Republican lineup.

"Disappointed to see House committee chairmanships in the 113th Congress will not include a single woman. -PM," tweeted Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who included a link to Boehner's press release announcing the chair posts.

A House Republican leadership aide declined to comment on the lack of diversity in the party's committee leadership. The aide noted, though, that GOP leaders just put four women in party leadership. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash) is the new House Republican Conference Chair, Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-Kansas) is conference vice chair, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) is conference secretary, and Rep.-elect Ann Wagner (R-Mo.) will represent freshman members in party leadership. Read on...

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On C-SPAN's morning call-in show Washington Journal on Tuesday, they took calls from Republicans only for reaction to Michael Steele's decision to run again for Republican National Committee chair -- and some of the responses were overtly racist, to put it mildly.

I didn't catch the entire segment, but these were two of the worst calls that I did hear, and I heard none that were complimentary to Steele. It doesn't look like their minority outreach program went over too well with these two birds. I'm so glad that second caller decided to let us all know that he's not a racist after he just twisted himself up in knots with his justifications for why he stopped donating to the RNC as soon as the black guy got elected to run it.

MARYLAND CALLER: You're not going to like what I have to say so you can put your finger on the dump button... I don't want Steele to be chairman of the Republican National Committee because he's black. I think we have bent over backwards to accommodate blacks in this country with the affirmative action stuff that's gone on now for sixty years here. And it's time we ended it. And as a black person I think he's inhibited to come out and condemn some of these Black Panthers like creep up in Philadelphia who said they should start killing white children. And I've never heard a single word from Michael Steele condemning this guy. Now I'm...

BRAWNER: Well what about the argument that the Republicans did capture the House, that they made gains in the Senate and that Michael Steele was the chair of the RNC at that time and has that record and that he made the point according to The Washington Times that this is... they need to make a bigger tent in the Republican party and show diversity?

MARYLAND CALLER: I disagree with that. Diversity is terrible for any country. It's destroying this country and it will destroy any country.

[…]

ALABAMA CALLER: Yeah I agree with the previous caller a couple of calls ago about why they wouldn't support Mr. Steele because he was black. I don't have anything against black people, but I noticed after he took over all the letters that I kept getting from the Republican committee want me to donate my money they were wanting to keep supporting these RINO's, what we call RINO's, Republicans which really should be in the Democratic party.

And so I just quit giving my money that I've been donating for about thirty five years every year to the Republican party, because of that reason. Because I just took my money and give it to the individual people that I wanted to vote for that were conservative Republicans and quit giving into everything that the Democrats wanted.

And as far as getting the black vote for the Republican party, it's never going to happen because you see what happened to Mrs. Clinton. You see how they praised her all those years about her husband being the first black president? Well they stabbed him in the back and they're still stabbing white people in the back because 90% of the Democratic party in the black population, which I grew up in, and I'm not a racist... that I grew up in they want to tag the white people, all white people as racists, so the Republicans are never going to get to vote for 'em.

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David Frum, who I don't agree with about much of anything came on Bill Moyers Journal this week, and he took Rush Limbaugh to task for calling President Obama a Nazi. I'm sure he's just put a big target on his head from the right wing hate mongers for even appearing on Moyers' show in the first place, but I'm glad to see at least one Republican speaking up and telling the truth about how dangerous this type of talk is. So here's something I thought I'd never say. Good for David Frum for speaking out on this matter.

BILL MOYERS: I'm reminded that you grew up in Canada.

DAVID FRUM: I did.

BILL MOYERS: Couldn't the conservative, a calm conservative make a case for that kind of national insurance plan in this country?

DAVID FRUM: Look, where those plans have grown up, as in Britain, for example, you've seen conservatives make their peace with them, as the British conservatives have done. And once something is integrated into the status quo of your country, it gets conservative. There are I think a lot of reasons not to regard it as a preferable system.

It stifles the possibility of innovation and diversity. It means that ideas that get into the minds of people in Washington are very difficult to get out. And it creates a -- it also creates this tremendous problem where every malfunction in the system becomes the fault of the politicians.

BILL MOYERS: You describe yourself as a calm conservative. But you have certainly aroused those to your right in the Republican Party. You know, talk show hosts like Mark Levin have come after you saying you're kneecapping your own. What about that?

DAVID FRUM: Look, a lot of the conservative movement in this country is conducting itself in a way that is tremendously destructive. Both of the basic constitutional compact of the requirements of good faith and of their own good sense. I mean, when you were going on the air and calling the President of the United States a Nazi as Rush Limbaugh has repeatedly done. When Mark Levin -- you mentioned him -- he said the President of the United States is literally at war with the American people.

And then people begin, unsurprisingly, showing up at rallies with guns. Well, obviously, if the President were-- I mean, folks, if I believed the President of the United States were a Nazi, were planning a Fascist takeover, it would be contemptibly cowardly of me not to do everything in my power, including contemplating violence, to resist such a thing. Every decent person should do that.

That's why you don't say it when it's not true. And I mean, one of the ways that the constitutional system works is with some understanding that the people on the other side have slightly different priorities but they share your constitutional values. They have invested in the same system. The problems they've got are hard problems. And even if you don't like their answers, you have to have some restraint in the way you talk about them, as you would hope they would have about you.

And I think it's just outrageous. It is dangerous. It's dangerous for the whole constitutional system. Now, I'm absolutely prepared to fight with them. And by the way, it's dangerous to conservatives because the effect of the talk of people like Levin and Rush Limbaugh is to kill our cause with voters who are under 65.

You make that man the face and you say let us contrast him to Barack Obama who is maybe too expensive but who seems calm and judicious? That's an ugly comparison.

BILL MOYERS: For this appearance alone, your website, NewMajority.com, is going to be besieged by some of those folks, right?

DAVID FRUM: We have been besieged but this is a fight worth doing. And I have to say I'm thinking of changing our slogan. I'm adapting something from the old Panasonic folks, our new motto's going to be "just slightly ahead of our time." I know the conservatives of this country are not with me on these issues today. But I know equally well they will be with me on these issues in the future. They are just going to learn it, unfortunately, a harder way.

BILL MOYERS: The book is COMEBACK: CONSERVATISM THAT CAN WIN AGAIN. David Frum, thanks for being with me on the JOURNAL.

DAVID FRUM: Thank you.

VIRGINIA FOXX: Republicans have a better solution that won't put the government in charge of people's health care that will make sure we bring down the cost of health care for all Americans. And that ensures affordable access for all Americans, and is pro life because it will not put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government.

You can watch the entire interview here.