Is American Liberalism Exhausted?

Last week, the Wall Street Journal carried a superb column by Shelby Steele, author and senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. The piece was essentially a summary of his brilliant book, Shame, which is a must-read for conservatives.

In Shame, Steele, who is an African-American, explains how America since the 1960s has lived through what might be called an age of "white guilt." He goes on to describe how most whites don't feel actual guilt for America's past treatment of minorities. Rather they are terrorized by having liberals (or as they now like to be called, progressives) denounce them as racists, sexists, or militarists. More recently, they like to label opponents xenophobic, homophobic, or "deniers." Seizing on America's unjust embrace of slavery for over 200 years and its shabby treatment of Native Americans and other minorities, the Left wrapped itself in a cloak of moral authority.