I’m watching CNN, and anchor Rick Sanchez says we’ve “just learned” that Bobby Jindal will be giving the response to Obama’s State of the Union address. Uh, no.

Pointing to Jindal and new RNC Chair Michael Steele, CNN political editor Mark Preston and Sanchez are discussing the “surprise” at these non-white faces taking prominent roles in the Republican party.

Mmm . . . the previous administration had two African-American Secretaries of State, one African-American National Security Adviser, one African-American Education Secretary, Latino Secretaries of Commerce and of Housing and Urban Development, and an Asian-American Secretary of Labor; it also fought (and lost) the judicial nomination of Miguel Estrada. (And Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, but let’s just overlook him for a moment

. . .) Jindal didn’t come out of nowhere; he was a House member from 2004 to 2007. Mel Martinez went on to become elected senator and (briefly) led the RNC. In 2006 the GOP had African-American candidates in the Ohio and Pennsylvania governor’s races and the Maryland Senate race (Steele), all of whom lost.

In fact, even having a member of a minority give the GOP response is not new. J.C. Watts gave the GOP’s response to Bill Clinton’s SOTU back in 1997.

But Sanchez is already moving on, letting us know that one of his viewers wrote in, via Twitter, to declare Steele is “a hip-hop Forest Gump.”

Well, that’s edifying.