McCain's Sister Souljah Moment

On Tuesday, McCain was forced to apologize for comments made by conservative talk radio host Bill Cunningham at a campaign event in Cincinnati. Cunningham referred to the Democratic presidential hopeful as Barack Hussein Obama and said the Illinois senator as "a hack, a Chicago-style" politician.

This incident is reminiscent of Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, in which he rebuked political activist and hip-hop musician Sister Souljah. She was quoted in The Washington Post as saying "If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?".

Clinton and McCain are both making the same play for the vital center by rebuking the extremes of their party. The talk show nuts who won't endorse McCain will turn out to be a net gain for the senator, who again reinforced his long-standing reputation for both principle and ethics. With the ascendency of both of Obama and McCain, by now it must have dawned on the likes of Anne Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and Cunningham that their influence on the direction of national elections is nil. Those who listen to or read these rants may be less ditto heads than folks that like to slow down for a car wreck.

In the same week that Cunningham babbled his babble, the erudite William F. Buckley, Jr. died. It's a rare week when I don't read his journal The National Review. He exemplified the best in conservatism, with his broad friendships, relentless curiosity and rationality, engaging wit, and Christian spirit. It's ironic and perhaps fitting that we may be seeing the death of the conservative movement as well this year. In a perverse kind of Gresham's law, bad conservatives are not only driving out good conservatives from the marketplace of ideas. They are also turning those conservatives into liberals.