THE DEMOCRATIC BLACK CAUCUS. One perplexity in the ongoing debate about the possible Congressional Black Caucus Political Education & Leadership Institute G.O.P. presidential candidate debate with Fox News is why the CBC Institute is trying to host a debate for the G.O.P. field, anyway. The Fox News editorial line and viewers are heavily biased toward the G.O.P., but there are no black Republicans in Congress to push for this debate or gain advantage from it, because there are no black Republicans in Congress. I realize there may be some tax status issues at work here that compell the CBC Institute, a non-profit, to try to maintain a bipartisan face, but since J.C. Watts left the House, the Caucus has been 100 percent Democratic. It’s difficult to imagine other 100 percent Democratic Congressional Caucuses thus reaching out to and trying to promote the leaders of the opposing party, and on a hostile news network, and to the extent that the CBC Institute is compelled to do so for tax reasons, it suggests the organization is not properly constituted to meet its own aims.
–Garance Franke-Ruta
