The Democratic National Committee is making an embarrassing slur of the President into something like official party doctrine. The New York Sun reports that the party declines to repudiate Charles Rangel's absurd comparison of President Bush to Bull Connor, the racist Southern sheriff of four decades ago. Rangel made himself look silly the other night on The O'Reilly Factor, and to boot, he demeaned Irish Americans by consistently calling Connor "O'Connor." Bill Reilly didn't pick up on this, either. I am only a quarter Irish, but it seemed rather odd to me.

I suppose that Rangel's status as an African—American renders him immune to any criticism within Democrat ranks. But this is a truly stupid posture to adopt, and Ken Mehlman, the RNC's chairman, sees the opportunity and is pushing it. He knows that we have Congressional elections coming in 13 months, and that the GOP's greatest national leverage lies in tagging the Democrats as extremists living in the past on most issues, from race to foreign policy.

The Democrats increasingly jump the shark.

Thomas Lifson   9 28 05