Slate was itching to issue a Slatey take on this week's news that Republicans' House majority whip spoke at a white supremacists' hootenanny in 2002. So the site published a contrarian account, quickly praised by right wing pundits, based on the rantings of one local man who concealed his ties to the racist group.

David Duke—former KKK top dawg, ex-Republican legislator, and poster boy for the modern American white power movement—told Fusion in an interview yesterday that sure, he knows the now-embattled GOP House whip, and hey, he rubs elbows with lots of pols, left and right, and he'll name names.

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), a rising star in the national Republican Party, confirmed reports Monday on the neo-Nazi website Stormfront that he had presented at a 2002 white supremacist conference organized by KKK bigwig and ex-Republican legislator David Duke.