Jack Hunter, Sen. Rand Paul’s blatantly racist neo-Confederate staffer (who used the name “Southern Avenger”) has resigned, complaining of being unfairly labeled a racist. (Of course.)

Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) controversial senior aide, who has come under fire recently for his reported past as a pro-secessionist activist and radio shock jock, has resigned from his post and will return to punditry, The Daily Caller reported Sunday evening.

In an email to the Daily Caller, Jack Hunter wrote that he did not want to be a distraction for the senator and hopes to clear his name, which he says has become unfairly associated with racism.

“I’ve long been a conservative, and years ago, a much more politically incorrect (and campy) one,” Hunter said in the email. “But there’s a significant difference between being politically incorrect and racist. I’ve also become far more libertarian over the years, a philosophy that encourages a more tolerant worldview, through the lens of which I now look back on some of my older comments with embarrassment.”

This is such a typical right wing excuse it’s become boring. Jack Hunter was not just “politically incorrect,” and there’s nothing “unfair” about identifying his caveman views as racist in the extreme. For example, here are some excerpts from a column he wrote in 2009, comparing President Abraham Lincoln to Adolf Hitler.

“Hitler was an admirer of the 16th president [Lincoln] for all the obvious reasons.”

“Hitler’s language and actions were similar to Lincoln’s, who believed that state sovereignty was foolish compared to “saving the union.”“

“The 16th president had far more in common with the Nazi dictator than the Southern soldiers who died fighting for their country’s independence.”

“Conducting the first “total war” of the modern era — in which Lincoln’s armies intentionally targeted innocent women, children, and old men in the South — was nothing less than an act of “genocide” against Southerners.”

There’s much more where that came from. And Jack Hunter is no outlier; these pro-Confederacy views are nauseatingly common in today’s Republican Party. Every CPAC in recent years has hosted panel discussions with neo-Confederates.