Diversity lies in more than melanin

You want diversity? We’ve got diversity.

Today Review-Journal Publisher Sherman Frederick points out that Democrats have been vilifying President Bush for years but says “it's time for that kind of hate-filled politics to end. While we may have differences, we now go forward together (as we do after all big changes in national elections) into the unknown future. It is only good and right for us to give the new president the benefit of the doubt and as much support as our ideological differences will allow as he grapples with the economy and the war on terrorism.”

On a turn of the page we find Vin Suprynowicz taking a slightly different stance. He has no plans to shake hands and wait for the next “game.”

“With Jefferson,” he writes, “we have pledged eternal enmity to these ongoing crimes against human energy, ingenuity, and decency. This is not ‘a game.’ With these forces of darkness, which will eventually ruin this once-proud nation, casting us broken and bankrupt on the mercy of the enemies of freedom, we do not shake hands.

“We nearly always lose. But while we breathe, we fight.”

Then below Vin’s column you find one by J.C. Watts, a former Republican congressman from Oklahoma, who shares Obama’s ration of melanin if not his politics.

“Regardless of what one thinks of Obama's policies, this was a victory of magnificent proportion,” Watts wrote. “If we're being honest with ourselves, it would have been hard for some to believe 35, 25, or even 10 years ago, that an American who happens to be black could ascend to the presidency.”

Now that’s diversity in the true sense of the word. And it makes people tea-pot boiling mad. Just take a look at the letters to editor and the commentaries posted online with Vin’s column today. I must warn you, the invective, venom and name-calling are not for the squeamish.

A few samples:

— “I love to hear the pigs squeal, you know you're doing something right!”

— “Vin is spot on. Theft is theft. I do not shake hands with a thief who "did a good job" at robbing me.”

— “I really don't know why the RJ hasn't fired you, yet. You have nothing important to say.”

— “Most of us have no idea what's coming at you now. History has many dreadful lessons for us, none of which we have cared to learn.”

— “LOL ... whine on, LOSER.”

And who knows how much more will be there by the time you get around to it.