Back when he was a civil rights leader, Andrew Young was generally considered a skillful diplomat. He was a conciliator, a charmer, one who could quietly negotiate a compromise between even the angriest adversaries. While shouting demonstrators surrounded the Birmingham jail where Martin Luther King Jr. was imprisoned during a civil rights protest, Young was the ambassador who dealt with Police Commissioner Eugene ("Bull") Connor and won a promise to end segregation of facilities at large downtown stores.
So, too, was Young's diplomacy crucial to Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign. He mobilized a voter...