High Hopes

Few senators, past or present, have made their presence felt as often as former Democratic Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun, the first black woman ever elected to the Senate who now wants to become the nation's first black - and female - president.

After one term on Capitol Hill, the 55-year-old Moseley-Braun was dethroned amid charges of campaign-finance irregularities and an unsanctioned visit to Africa. (After one door closed for the defeated lawmaker, another soon opened, as President Clinton named her ambassador to New Zealand.)

Now the former senator from Illinois has informed the Democratic National Committee that she intends to return next month to Washington, where Democrats will gather to discuss their slate of candidates challenging President Bush in 2004.

Meanwhile, rumors swirl around these wintry streets of Washington that the eventual Democratic front-runner (assuming it's not Moseley-Braun) will wind up choosing a woman as a running mate. That hasn't happened since Democrat Geraldine Ferraro made history alongside Walter Mondale in 1984, albeit on the losing end.

One woman often mentioned as a potential vice-presidential nominee for 2004 is newly crowned House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California. New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's name is also being bounced around. But come to think of it, hasn't Mrs. Clinton already held the No. 2 post at the White House? (Couldn't help myself, Al.)

And, of course, there's Moseley-Braun, who no doubt would jump at the opportunity to be vice president of the United States, given the relatively obscure school district seat she now holds in Illinois.

It literally boggles the mind that a person of Moseley-Braun's questionable character, thinks she could represent America in the highest office in the land.

And why shouldn't she?--The Clintons certainly paved the way for future sleazebags.

The sole reason Carole Moseley-Braun is out there is to blunt the potential candidacy of Al Sharpton. To put up a person of African descent, who happens to be a male, could only be outbid by putting up a female of the same ethnicity.

The entire Democrat party has a problem. They have fanned the fires of racism for years, first by openly supporting a de facto and legislative program of segregation until that strategy was largely driven out of existence in the 1960s, with the passage (with only lukewarm support from Democrats, overwhelmingly and enthusiasticly supported by Republicans) of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. A retrenchment, hiding in an excess of apologia, which set special quotas and target levels to "prove" the Americans of African descent were now fully integrated, by throwing open doors of all the institutions that were formerly closed to them. Result? A sizable proportion of the ill-prepared aspirants to these positions fell flat on their faces. The entire generation of Americans of African descent were unfairly branded as relatively incompetent, who only won their position by fiat. Even very capable and very good Americans of African descent carried the brand, of "second-rate", and the unspoken consensus was that only by artificially handicapping the majority, could the minority catch up.

(After one door closed for the defeated lawmaker, another soon opened, as President Clinton named her ambassador to New Zealand.)

And what did New Zealand do that pissed off clinton enough for him to do that to them.

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