Amazing little story: last survivor of plot to kill Hitler dies at 90. Best part, what his father told him when he asked whether he should wear a suicide vest in the plot to kill Hitler.

Yesterday, a CPAC breakout session on reaching out to black voters broke down in shouting and acrimony as a handful of ‘disenfranchised whites’ attacked the premise of the session (along with black complaints about slaveholders), got into a verbal fight with a black female attendee and with all that managed to unite the crowd against the black woman as the one who somehow spoiled all the fun.

TPM’s Benjy Sarlin was there right as it was all happening and wrote this eye-popping account in more or less real time. (If you’ve already read Benjy’s piece definitely also check out fellow TPM scribe Pema Levy’s companion piece just filed this morning on her effort to find out from CPACers why they think Romney lost.)

Already this morning, I’ve watched on twitter the birth of a mini-conspiracy theory that the slavery defenders were liberal agents provocateurs, presumably sent by whoever sent Todd Akin and the rest of the plants who now are ruining the conservative brand. Read More

Sarah Palin used her appearance at CPAC to comfort conservatives that messaging, not politics, is hurting the movement — then unleashed an avalanche of familiar, grievence-soaked cliches.

Pema Levy reports that no clear consensus has emerged among CPAC attendees for the GOP’s showing at the polls in November.

Maybe it’s too early to expect that, and there is no one explanation for the defeat. On the other hand, blaming external factors outside of the party’s control — the media, Hurricane Sandy — is the kind of denial that can thwart constructive change.

Democrats have been through this before, too, and I’m not sure a consensus on what went wrong truly emerges until the next winning streak comes along, when the winner gets to define, rightly or wrongly, what caused all the losing.