Donna Edwards

On Tuesday, The Washington Post's Jason Horowitz mocked Grover Norquist's vigilance (or rigidity) against tax increases as "almost religious" in its intensity, his no-new-taxes pledge a "sacred text." So when the sandal is on the other foot, and a leftist shows great vigilance (or rigidity) against any reduction in the growth of Medicare and Social Security, is that "almost religious"? Not to reporter Ben Pershing in his Friday article on ultraliberal Rep. Donna Edwards of Maryland. The headline was "Edwards emerging as liberals' voice."  Pershing portrayed Edwards as polite, but firm in her refusal to allow entitlement programs to be on the bargaining table. He began:

Rep. Donna F. Edwards had a clear message for the small group of constituents who gathered Saturday at an auto-glass store in Lanham: “Protecting Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid are incredibly important, more now than ever before.”

MSNBC's Chris Matthews honored Martin Luther King Jr. Day by accusing white Republicans of being afraid of black people. During a Monday night Hardball special called "Obama's America," Matthews insultingly asked former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele if, at GOP conventions, black-Americans at those events were told not to "bunch up" because "you'll scare these people" and added: "Did you fear that if you got together with some other African-Americans these white guys might get scared of you?"

Steele, who was the only Republican on the panel, seemed shocked by the question as he responded to Matthews: "No! What are you talking about?" and then proceeded to cite the successful candidacies of Tim Scott, Allen West and others in the GOP field that would suggest white Republicans weren't exactly afraid of, as Matthews put it, "black folk hanging together."

The following is the full exchange from the panel that featured Steele along with the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson and Democratic Congresswoman Donna Edwards, as it was aired on the January 17 edition of Hardball:

(video and audio after the break)

My hat's off to you, Ed. You've restored my faith in the possibility of liberals occasionally seeing the light.

Here's an exchange between Schultz and Rep. Donna Edwards of Maryland on Schultz's radio show Thursday --