9/29/00 2:55 p.m.
Frying Rice
A setback in identity politics.

By NR's John J. Miller & Ramesh Ponnuru

onservatives understandably cheered the Supreme Court's Rice decision last year, which said that the state of Hawaii couldn't hold an election for a public office in which only Native Hawaiians — i.e., aboriginal descendants — may vote. Here was a small but substantial victory against identity politics, delivered by an 8-1 majority.

But now the House of Representatives has gutted the Court's ruling with the passage of H.R. 4904. The bill, approved in a voice vote last Tuesday, allows Hawaii to return to its old practice of restricting certain statewide elections to people of particular bloodlines.

It's troubling enough that the bill was passed at all — conservatives thought they had gained ground, but now it's been snatched away. What's even worse, however, is how it coasted through the House. "Nobody contacted us and said don't put this on the suspension calendar," explains a spokesman for Majority Leader Dick Armey.

"The Republican majority in Congress isn't paying attention to bills that promote racial classifications and allow the cult of victimization to grow unchecked," says Edward Blum of the American Civil Rights Institute.

The bill now moves to the Senate. Will anybody there question it?

Al's Tall Tales
Vice President Gore tried to explain his tendency to "exaggerate" things, during an interview last night with Larry King.

King: "When people say you exaggerate a lot, like I heard this song and it wasn't even around when you say it, what happens there with you?"

Gore: "Oh, I think that itself is an exaggeration."

King: "You mean complaining about exaggerating is an exaggeration?"

Gore: "Yes. I mean, I think that in a campaign, you know, if you get a fact wrong, all of a sudden you're accused of, you know, committing some horrible offense."

King: "You don't mean it with malice?"

Gore: "No. Of course not."

If we were ungenerous people, this last line might count as the latest Gore lie on NR's running list of them. How else to explain the deceptions about his record on abortion and tobacco, or his dishonest charge delivered last January about Bill Bradley's position on flood relief? If Gore wants the benefit of the doubt, it would be nice if he apologized, just once, when he "get[s] a fact wrong."

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