No one expected Rush Limbaugh to have kind words about Tom Perez, the Justice Department official who is President Barack Obama's nominee for secretary of labor.

But when he compared the Latino attorney to the "grand kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan" and the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, it even got a response from former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, who called that type of commentary "what the American people are tired of." From the Huffington Post:

"I think we just need to be a little more tempered here," Steele said. "I just don't see a basis for, you know, Chavez? How did we jump to that? Oh, because he's Hispanic? Oh, got it, got it, alright. Again, you can't take that seriously, and that's what the American people are tired of, quite frankly." 


Republicans, Steele said, "kind of seem to forget that when we were in the position, making the nominations, we got our noses out of joint when Democrats had ad hominem attacks against our nominees."

"We saw the success of those types of attacks when they're unwarranted, whether it's for a Justice Department appointment or for a Supreme Court nomination," Steele said.

Speaking of being tired, it looks as if — thanks to people like Limbaugh — poor Steele might end up exhausted if he's set on being a conservative voice of reason on issues of race and bigotry.

Read more at the Huffington Post.