That old soft shoe

No More Mister Nice Blog applauds a couple of Democrats for being willing to condemn an alleged liberal radio talk-show host (no one I've ever heard of, but we don't get a lot of that around here) for calling Condi Rice Aunt Jemima. He also called Colin Powell an Uncle Tom.

That's poor form, for a number of reasons, but I'm not impressed with Senator Feingold and Mayor Cieslewicz for going after the guy. That's Democrats for ya - won't catch them letting some bigmouth insert himself into the public discourse where he might pollute the otherwise pristine landscape that Limbaugh, Savage, Coulter et al. have given us.

At least the guy apologized:

"It is with a heavy heart that I apologize this morning to Aunt Jemima," John "Sly" Sylvester said on WTDY-AM in Madison. "She wasn't a self-serving hack politician who got up in front of Congress and lied. Aunt Jemima didn't kowtow to Don Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney."
[...]
He said Aunt Jemima was really a "strong, independent black woman" named Nancy Green. Born a slave in Kentucky, Green was hired in the 1890s to advertise the pancake mix.

"Aunt Jemima never lied about yellow cake uranium, she just makes a damn good pancake," Sylvester said.

And no doubt the advertisers figured she was a symbol of that nice lady who worked for your mom and was "just like part of the family."

I'm not quite sure what Condi and Colin are. As someone who came out of the house in DC, I have to admit I was mighty uncomfortable watching Powell say all those things he knew were lies and didn't agree with. But I bet an awful lot of people back on my home turf had trouble not thinking of those two as tokens. They may still feel that way about Powell. I have the impression they think considerably less of Condi.