If you read a lot of blogs, which I assume most of you do, it's likely that you've already seen this column from National Review Online -- because an awful lot of bloggers have (quite properly) gasped at its unabashed stupidity. If you don't read a lot of blogs -- I know some of my readers don't -- prepare to gasp yourself as Jennifer Graham prefaces a defense of Rush Limbaugh's comments on black quarterbacks:

A couple of years ago, the husband and I were eating out — something you don't do often with four kids under 10 — when he lowered his voice and gestured for me to look at the next table.

I did so, expecting to find something peculiar, such as Karl Rove conspiring with Elvis.

What I saw: A young family of five — father, mother, three young children, well-dressed, well-behaved, enjoying their night out, too. Except for the well-behaved children — mythical creatures with which we have no personal experience with — the family was unremarkable.

But they were black. And my husband whispered that in a nation where 70 percent of black children are born into homes without fathers, it was great to see a picture-perfect black family dining together. "I almost want to go give the guy a high five," he said, somewhat sheepishly.

He didn't, of course. When we left, we nodded, smiled at the children and promptly forgot the exchange...in which both of us unconsciously revealed that — horrors! — we are very desirous that black Americans do well.

It's true. We desire Condoleezza Rice to do well! We desire Colin Powell to do well! We desire Clarence Thomas to do well! We desire practically every black American — with the possible exception of O.J. — to do well!

Words fail me.

Fortuntely, words don't fail TBOGG and Atrios and Steve Gilliard (scroll down) and Jesse at Pandagon and Tom Tomorrow.

There's not much I can add to what they say, except perhaps in response to this statement by Graham:

The people on Rosa Park's bus did not want her to succeed. Today, with few exceptions, they would.

I don't believe that for a minute. When it comes to race, Americans -- liberal, moderate, and conservative -- are, generally speaking, starting to get it. But Americans don't like disorder. We don't like people who "make trouble" -- who disrupt routine and stop traffic and demand that a status quo that works for most people be changed because it's harmful to others. The Montgomery bus boycott was devastating to downtown businesses. In particular, if you believe the capitalism-worshipers at National Review Online, even the ones who denounced Trent Lott late last year, would have a good word to say about a modern Rosa Parks, you're deluding yourself.