During yesterday’s health-care summit, Sen. Tom Harkin compared health-insurance risk pooling to racial segregation and discrimination (Senator Harkin also introduced a Senate resolution last year apologizing for, among other things, racial segregation).

This is the same Senator Harkin who voted in favor of the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, a.k.a., the Akaka bill, that would create a separate race-based government for individuals of Hawaiian descent.

Emerson’s observation about foolish consistencies surely must hang from a wall somewhere in the senator’s office. Too bad he misapprehends it.