0 has lost its collective mind over this happy announcement today, the networks jockeying for position trying to attract to their network the largest proportion they can of all the people who are interested in this happy story, as the networks fall over themselves to outdo each other on this story, quietly back home, the news has broken already about who is winning the overall fight among all the networks to attract viewers. and among all the networks, all the big ones, among nbc, which is our parent company, and abc, and cbs, and fox, you know who's number one right now? none of them. look at the number one most watched network in the whole country right now. ta-da. univision. the month of july, the spanish-language network univision has had more viewers under the age of 50 than cbs, nbc, than fox, than everybody. they put out an open letter to all the other networks taunting them with the news today. numero uno is the new number and george washington and john smith, and all these great americans, martin luther king. these great americans that built this country. you came from them. and the unique thing about being from that part of the world, when you learn about breeding is you learn that you cannot breed sek tear yacht to a donkey and expect to win the kentucky derby. you guys have incredible dna, and don't forget it. >> donkey dna crossing with american good dna, that's why we can't have immigration reform. senator jeff sessions, senator ted cruz, congressman "immigrants are like dogs" steve king, all were built as part of that rally on capitol hill. the reporter for "the nation" who captured that audio said jeff sessions was standing right next to him, while the donkey dna thing resonated. another one of the prominent no votes against immigration reform in the senate was senator rand paul of kentucky. news today about senator rand paul that was maybe overshadowed by all the royal babiness. rand paul today lost his southern avenger. senator rand paul had hired as a senior senate staffer this man who goes by the name the southern avenger as a commentator and pundit and radio host. he would wear a confederate flag wrestling mask and opine on avenging the south. john wilkes booth was right. john wilkes booth, of course, assassinated president abraham lincoln. john wilkes booth's heart was in the right place. i raise a personal toast to celebrate john wilkes booth's birthday. modern americans are not wrong to deplore the millions of mexicans coming here now. a non-white majority america would cease to be america. this was one of my favorites. just because we have fair skin, we're always denied fair treatment. those were all quotes from the southern avenger in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007. in 2009, he was reaffirming his southern avenger name and explaining, "in my early 20s i was a full-blown right wing radical as a member of the southern secessionist group, the league of south, i argued seriously for the states to break away from the rest of the union. years later he said i thought it might be better to tone down the radicalism and appear more respectable. but when i came across an old column of mine last week, i realized i never really changed. i'm still just as radical or crazy depending on your perspective. in fact, i might be getting worse." he goes on to defend the idea that the south, now, should go confederate again and secede from the union since america is becoming too different, too diverse, too multicultural. so the south should secede again. so he argued in 2009, and it was less than a year later that rand paul hired the guy to write his book. and then he hired him on to his senate staff. after a conservative website did a detailed report on the southern avenger's background and what i'm trying to do rather than, you know, trying to go after, you know, one of my employees and say, oh, this is all about you. >> was he fully vetted? are you going to change your vetting process? >> anybody else -- >> anybody else got another issue? today while all eyes were on london and the royal baby and happy news there, today here in washington, they started fixing the martin luther king jr. memorial. the memorial, overall, is pretty stunning in person. i have to say, i am a fan. but arguably, they screwed up part of it. they took the core of a sermon that dr. king had delivered in 1968, just a few weeks before he was assassinated, a sermon that criticized the impulse in social movements for people to want to be seen as leaders, to want to be seen as out in front of the people. wanting to be seen as drum majors instead of as marchers, themselves. the memorial took that sermon and nutted it up in a way that many people felt twisted its meaning. the memorial just said etched into the stone "i was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness." which is kind of an appropriate keyword index to what dr. king said, but it's pretty much the opposite of the spirit in which he meant it. so today here in washington, d.c., they started fixing that. they're going to score new deep grooves into the stone to take out the screwed up inscription. they want it done before the 50th anniversary of the 1963 march on washington. the "i have a dream" speech march on washington which is going to happen late next month. we have a peculiar knack in this country for getting it wrong on race. even the most deliberate literally, carved in stone best intentioned things we do about race, we have a talent for screwing up. mistakes get made. when do they start self-correcting? when do we get the equal and opposite political reaction that forces a change to what we've got now, which is republicans going on spanish-language television to lie about their record comparing immigrants to dogs before their side probably prevails in congress in blocking immigration reform. nobody is perfect, but how do we get more perfect than this? because what we have got right now is absolutely terrible. joining us now is my friend, e.j. dionne, "washington post" columnist, senior fellow at brookings. e.j., great to see you. >> great to see you. buenas noches. >> the country is not nearly so bad off with race as we were half a century ago. we hear an elected conservative congressman comparing immigrants to dogs saying that was celebratory and his side is likely to win to stop important legislation in the house. why is that part of our politics so stuck? >> well, i do, i actually do think there's a chance for that in the house because i still think those folks are in a minority. we've done through a number of cycles like this in our history. we fought a civil war. we had reconstruction. african-americans got equal rights in the south. there were prominent african-american elected officials. then we had the reaction. the southerners who threw out the reconstruction government, called themselves redeemers. i'm sure the confederate avenger identifies with those redeemers. then we went through a long period of real regression, you know, until the time that w.e.b. du bois started writing. it took him a long time. we went backwards on race and went forward again in the civil rights years. i think what's really disturbing right now is there was a long time where even people who had been against the civil rights bills felt an obligation to speak in a certain way about race. felt an obligation to say i believe in the equal dignity of immigrants and of african-americans. since obama's election and maybe a little bit before that, we pulled back some. tonight i was thinking about a guy called mel bradford. mel bradford was one of those neoconfederates. there was talk ron reagan would make him head on the council of humanities. there was a huge blow-back in the conservative movement against the neoconfederate ideas. and bill bennett got the job instead. those forces are now on their way back with influence on the right and i think it's something our friends on the right really have to think about and start speaking out against. >> do you see any sparks on the right? i think you're right that the place to look for it immediately is a self-policing impulse or at least some sort of sign of embarrassment on the right so people on right can talk to each other about this. do you see any spark there? any signs of life? i had expected to see more of it by now. >> funnily enough, you're seeing it with george w. bush. george w. bush. george w., whatever else we say about him, he may have been wrong about iraq, but he always smoke with real feeling about immigrants. our friend, joan walsh, said, why can't they be right on both wars? usually the ones who are right about the civil war were wrong about iraq. and i think you're seeing other conservatives getting upset, but i think they -- and let's be clear, we're not talking about free speech here. the neoconfederates and everyone else is free to say what they want, but a political movement needs to tell people who we are and who we're not. bill buckley made a point of the conservative movement in the '60s. he, himself, corrected himself on race over time. and so i'm looking for more conservatives to speak out and say this isn't what conservatism ought to be. >> do you feel like there is anything constructive that is coming out of the discussion about the george zimmerman and trayvon martin trial, specifically about the stand your ground laws? you wrote really eloquently about cory booker and president obama and the way they've responded to that in personal terms, in terms of, you identify real leadership there. are you seeing signs of constructive discourse there? of us who are any other color, treat them as brothers and say, no, this whole part of our society, all these folks have equal dignity and should not be just left out there to suffer in very difficult circumstances. i'd like to think something good could come of this. what i'm worried about is the stuff you're seeing on twitter at times. there's a kind of racial rawness right now out there that i think should bother us all and when i say all, i mean us all and not just people who are liberal or progressive. >> i would say on that point that john mccain's positive words this weekend about reviewing arizona's stand your ground laws. i have hopes maybe even rick scott in florida might respond more to the pressure that is continuously put on him by the young people in florida, might consent to a review there. particularly because his scandal ridden lieutenant governor is the one that led the last review. i think there's reason to hope there. >> always hope. >> thank you very much. e.j. dionne, "washington post" columnist, senior fellow at brookings. all right. coming up, it is the thing that happened in the news today at the exact same moment as the royal baby announcement which means it will be forever lost to the news hole. except here. and that story's next. asional constipation, diarrhea, gas, bloating? 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