AN HONEST LIBERAL

Yes, honest liberals do exist. The Baltimore Sun's Gregory Kane is one, as demonstrated in his annual Chutzpah Awards. Kane's CAs honor the past year's most boneheaded moments, and this year he chose to single out a couple of his usual political allies:

5th runners-up: NAACP President Kweisi Mfume and Rep. Elijah Cummings. Dare I do this to two men who have my respect, are my friends and, in Cummings' case, is a dear classmate of City College's Class of 1969? Gotta call 'em like I see 'em. Mfume and Cummings rightly chided Lott for his remarks at Sen. Strom Thurmond's birthday celebration. We heard from neither when Del. Howard "Pete" Rawlings did some race-baiting of his own in the 41st District Senate race, in which incumbent Barbara Hoffman lost to newly elected Lisa Gladden.

4th runner-up: Rawlings, for subjecting Hoffman to the smell test with his not-so-subtle message to "vote black," hinting that folks should cast their ballots for those who "look like them, think like them and smell like them." For my money, the remark is worse than Lott's and insulting to Gladden, who had the qualifications and juice to win on her own without such nonsense.

Hoffman is Jewish, and Rawlings was basically saying that that fact made her less qualified to represent her predominantly black district than her opponent. You can read up on the situation here. Suffice it to say that the Dems seem to have internal racial problems of their own. Kane is right, and honest, to point them out.

UPDATE: I may have flubbed a bit when classifying Kane as a liberal. Fact is, his stances are all over the place--conservative in some places, liberal in others, and independent to libertarian in others, which makes him an interesting read. I guess he might be a liberal in the classical sense, but probably not in today's left-right spectrum. Kane is Kane, a maverick if there ever was one. So I guess the upshot is that I'm still looking for an honest liberal to talk about race and the Dems.

UPDATE AGAIN: I've been wondering lately why Josh Marshall hasn't adressed me publicly since I started taking him on. We've emailed back and forth, so I know he's aware that I've been fact-checking him. Well, I think I've figured out why (well, other than my relative obscurity). Mickey Kaus has been all over him, and I think Kaus has gotten the better of him. Playing referee, Slate's Will Saletan hands it to Kaus in a TKO. So no wonder Marshall hasn't taken me on publicly--he's got bigger heavyweights on his case, and they've landed some body-blows. He probably figures if he ignores me I'll just get tired and go away.

North Korea may prove a little different, though. Kaus isn't all that strong on foreign policy and while Marshall is promising a hard-hitting series of posts purporting to prove it's a Bush screw-up, so far I have to say that he's playing out of his depth. Today's installment takes on a rather weak comparison of North Korea to Germany circa 1938. Like I said, it's a weak comparison, but for Marshall taking it on makes sense--dispatch the weakest of your critics and you may appear to have beaten them all. Sorry, not buying it, just like I don't buy the "North Korea is Germany" routine that Hugh Hewitt makes (though Hewitt is right to chide Marshall's childish arguments). It's only slightly better than comparing North Korea to Ruby Ridge, which is silly too and Marshall seems to be backing away from. Fact is, I've cast about in vain for a historical event to compare NK to. Nothing seems to fit very well. It's an ugly, dangerous situation all the way around with no easy answers. What we face is essentially a personality cult a la the Heaven's Gate suicide sneaker people that happens to have a heavily armed nation attached to it. Not a good combination.

I think Marshall's Clinton-defense-by-offense strategy is rooted in more than party hackery. "It's the economy, stupid" did more than merely insult the nation's intelligence--it seems to have caused an entire generation of Dems to forget how to approach foreign policy as anything other than a domestic political wedge issue.