I don't often bookmark articles, but this one's a keeper!
There is just one assertion that Mr. Wheeler makes with which I take (huge, vociferous) issue: his phrase the self-loathing of the white American liberal. The white American liberal loathes his fellow whites (or fellow males, or fellow Americans, or fellow wealthy people, or fellow Christians....ad infinitum, depending upon how many 'oppressive' groups he considers himself to have been unfortunate enough to have been born into....). But he most definitely does not loathe himself.
On the contrary.
He has cast himself in the role of knight in shining armor -- the omniscient exception to the rule whose destiny it is to awaken those evil 'others' of his race/gender/nationality/economic status to the error of their ways. He has altruistically (*cough*) taken it upon himself to point out the sins of his ancestors, and the fact that the sins of the fathers have been visited upon their sons. Yet he is somehow a plane above the rest of his misguided 'siblings' and his calling consists of sanctimoniously making them aware of that fact (no matter how many revisions of history, character assassinations, fabrications of convenience....it takes). Self-loathing is not a popular pass-time among self-proclaimed, self-deified crusaders. Self-aggrandizement is more their style. They (surreptitiously) direct their loathing outward....