When I was 11, my father thought it was time to show my sister and me the nation's capital. I have only vague memories of that trip — the heat, the expanse of the White House's grounds, the Jefferson Memorial. I do remember we took Route 1 through Baltimore (no I-95 yet), and it was there that I saw my first sign with the word "colored" on it — a rooming house, I think. This was 1952, and the United States was an apartheid nation. It is Sarah Palin who brings back these memories. In her new book, she reportedly...