The Truffle

Here is Pitts' response to the neo-Nazis, hood-wearers, and general mouth-breathers who've been sending him death threats. I pity the Neo-Nutsies. How impotent they must feel. How frightened and small. So they console themselves with these delusions of inherent superiority.... I feel a little like Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life. They say you can tell who a man is by looking at his friends. Which is true. But I believe you can also tell by looking at his enemies. Apparently, I have managed to make enemies of haters, bigots and other low, pathetic men. I must be doing something right. And that is how you respond to the thugs. More people should take their cue from Pitts when faced with far-right bigots. On an unrelated note, E.R. Shipp is another outstanding African-American columnist with a Pulitzer to show for it. She used to write for the New York Daily News, but I haven't seen her byline in a while. Now she has a blog. Where are you, E.R.? Come back! ...

The Miami Herald's Leonard Pitts, Jr. is a the kind of smart, clear-headed editorial columnist that the mainstream media really, really needs more of. Unlike, say, Bozell or Malkin or Susan Estrich or Ted Rall, he's an actual journalist who can write and argue with logic. And he has a 2004 Pulitzer to show for his fine work. So naturally, right-wing extremists have decided that they hate him. The trouble started when right-wing bloggers and racist bigots decided to exploit a horrible crime for political points. A white couple in Tennessee was abducted, raped, and murdered. Five African-Americans have been charged. It made the local news, but was not reported nationally. To the wingnutosphere, this is evidence that the librul media is so wimpy and politically correct that it purposefully avoids covering black-on-white crime so that nobody thinks they're racist. (Please note that the aforementioned African-Americans have been arrested but have not yet been convicted....