I'm sure Palin's entrance, as well as the entrance of any of the old classic cast—ah hell, any carbon-based life form passing in front of the camera lens—will solicit from the crowd this synapse-snapping shreik that sounds like nothing more than 5,000 high-school cheerleaders being electrocuted en masse. It is the…

The reality is that many (older) white people are so desperate to stop being guilty/uncomfortable about the legacy of slavery, and— since the reality of what slavery actually was isn't getting any rosier as the decades pass—the only thing to do its change perception of slavery, to "spin" it. Hence, the "things weren't…