Blog Banter - Finally, Mickey Kaus has risen to the challenge and commented on the Louisiana GOP's tactic of exploiting an intra-party rift between Cleo Fields and Mary Landrieu to try to get black people to stay home and not vote. Kaus never really denies that the effort by the Louisiana GOP was intended to suppress the black vote. He calls the move "cynical" (whatever that means in an election context - I would call it patently "dishonest") and actually passes it off as an improvement for the GOP in terms of, apparently, its history of suppressing the black vote. Is Kaus admitting the GOP has a sordid history of doing worse to suppress the black vote? In any case, Kaus's analysis itself is cynical in that it whitewashes (pun intended) the clear intent of this tactic. As a good citizen of the world's greatest democracy, Kaus should instead be advocating the strengthening of turnout for all eligible voters - something that a vibrant democracy needs, and something that has sadly been on the decline all throughout the US. And Kaus makes no mention of the GOP bribery of people to hold aloft the signs, which is another level of "cynicism" altogether. I have to give Kaus credit for addressing this issue, though his dismissal of it so cavalierly is disappointing. Where's Andrew Sullivan in all of this?