Jeff Smith: My Macaca Moment

The recent attention to local and national politicians' racial gaffes reminds me of my own.

As readers may be aware, politicians have lately dredged up one of the ugliest aspects of our nation's history: slavery and the subsequent century of brutality and discrimination. Haley Barbour has often tripped himself up, beginning with his 1982 watermelon comment. More recently he's praised the ignominious Citizens Councils and declined to condemn a proposal to venerate Confederate war hero and...