Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour jumped down the Confederate rabbit hole on Sunday. Barbour said on CNN that he agreed with Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's initial decision to name April Confederate History Month, even though the proclamation made no mention of slavery.

Barbour is chairman of the Republican Governors Association. He is one of the most influential Republicans in the country. In fact, on Saturday, The Fix named him the most influential Republican in the country. By Sunday, Barbour gave his prominence a black eye (and perhaps his party as well).

Barbour has attached himself to McDonnell's Confederate mistake. That decision shocks few in Mississippi but plays out badly on the national stage. My recent column on the subject put one of the issues this way:

The Confederacy cannot be divorced from its consequence. If the South won, blacks would have remained enslaved as "property." Because the Union won, blacks were liberated as people and Americans.

Barbour made the same mistake. He divorced the Confederacy from its consequence. This is one reason why Barbour's stature will likely not carry him to the contenders circle in 2012, for the GOP nomination that is.

At best, Barbour's comment illustrates insensitivity to the most scarring American racial issue. It is also rather unhinged from history. Barbour tries to make the point that Southern Democrats and Republicans share this view. That is truest in his region, the Deep South. But that's a point that is beside the point.

On the national stage, we can now count two prominent Republican governors who have taken this Confederate stand. At some point, these mistakes create an image problem not only for individual politicians but re-substantiate a stereotype that has long dogged the Republican Party. That indeed becomes a GOP problem. And it is a problem Republicans better quickly handle.

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