THE RACIAL RUBICON

Among the lugubrious Senatorial fawning over Colin Powell, whose mystique continues to escape me, was an interesting interchange between Powell and Jesse Helms. Helms, the old segregationist, was on good form. He never says something you can’t understand, once you’ve mastered the drool and the accent. I listened for a while, intermittently chuckling, until something occurred to me. Here was a man who had built a career on racial fears in the South respectfully questioning a black nominee for secretary of state. If W does nothing else, this was a milestone. And it was all the more a milestone for being unspoken, unelaborated and unforced. While the Democrats continue to foster racial resentment and hatred in order to shore up their base, George W has quietly trumped them. It took me until today to appreciate the importance of this. But I’m now allowing myself a small dose of racial optimism for the country.