No special occasion...just had this photograph on my mind today. (It's Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine, walking to school on the day in 1957 when Little Rock Central High School was liberated by the federal U.S. government (Dwight Eisenhower, president).) This is before the troops arrived.

This picture has always haunted me. Mainly because of Eckford's stoic posture and bearing and the concealment of expression on her face. And the expression on the face of the white woman behind her.



Look at that face: look at the mouth. The black hole of hate, of indignance, of outrage, of blind self-loathing that is that mouth, is the black hole that is the heart of the contemporary Republican party. That black hole has birthed James Dobson, Sean Hannity, Grover Norquist, Jesse Helms, Ann Coulter, Karl Rove, Orrin Hatch. It is endlessly fertile.

Imagine what it would have felt like to be part of that mob on that day, the mob marching behind the girl. The Republican party has built itself on the feeling of being part of that mob. They're doomed, and they know it. But they don't care. They're riding high on the opiate of the hate that bonds them. They're the victims. They know they're right. They're completely safe. There must be no feeling like that feeling.

None of the cool kids were sticking up for Elizabeth Eckford that day. Her side was decidedly uncool. Her right to attend school that day was not the will of the people, in Little Rock, in Arkansas, in the country. The Black-Robed Tyrants of the Judiciary flouted the will of the people. They ran roughshod over the democratic feeling of the day.

Dan Rather signed off on his final broadcast yesterday with his former signature invocation: "Courage." But it rang kind of hollow. I didn't really hear him say anything that actually made me think about courage. Moral courage, and physical courage, must be such rare and amazing things.


Hecklers taunt Elizabeth Eckford as she walks to Central High School in 1957; Clinton and Congress honor Eckford Tuesday by awarding her the Congressional Gold Medal for helping to break the color barrier in the nation's schools.