Leave Him Alone!

Black support may echo the past, but it has come of age

There was a moment during last week's emotion-filled White House reception for Nelson Mandela when I felt as if I had traveled back in time. It came when the Rev. Bernice King, who looks and sounds remarkably like her sainted father Martin Luther King Jr., likened Bill Clinton to the biblical King David, who kept his throne despite his sinful dalliance with Bathsheba because he atoned. Offering the President her understanding and her forgiveness, she intoned, "It's time, I think, for us to leave our President alone." The audience of African-American religious leaders broke into a chant, "Leave him alone! Leave...

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