The issue is the issue!

If you hang around in the public square of ideas long enough, and people know you for a set of convictions, they'll do one of three things.

1) They will agree with you.

2) They will not agree with you.

3) They will not only not agree with you, but will make you the issue.

Some of you may remember my tale of the parish in Georgetown where I worked as a sacristan in the early 1990s. Later in the decade, when certain controversies started to get worse, they set up a discussion forum on the parish website. Knowing that a cadre of pseudo-intellectuals that dominated the parish managed to intimidate everyone into conformity, or at least silence, I knew the only way to get the online participants to focus on the issue at hand, was to remove the personality. Knowing I'd be a personality that would easily become an issue, I removed it from the equation. For the first and only time online, I adopted a pseudonym.

I picked the name "Solanus," for the Capuchin friar from Detroit whose seminary professors considered him a bit dull-witted. Seems he was the only Irishman in a German-speaking seminary, and certain impediments didn't occur to them to be the cause of anything. So when he was ordained, it was on the condition that he never be allowed to preach or hear confessions. Despite these limitations, Father Solanus Casey was the porter (a sacristan, essentially) at St Bonaventure's Friary in Detroit during the early- and mid- 20th century, and was known far and wide as a counselor and healer. A number of miracles have been attributed to him, both during and after his lifetime. He has in recent years been declared "Venerable," his cause for sainthood having begun in earnest.

But this Solanus got taken seriously, and his responses were closely monitored by parishioners, even by Jesuit professors on the Georgetown campus. Before "coming out" around Christmas of that year (after the site was shut down when both sides of the debates were beginning to agree that the pastor's judgement deserved a closer look), the prevailing wisdom was that "Solanus" was either a woman, or a retired Jesuit.

But most pundits don't have that luxury.

A columnist named Michelle Malkin is mentioned at MWBH from time to time. The daughter of Filipino immigrants who grew up in New Jersey, she is a rising star among conservative women in America. Her husband even put his own ambitions aside when her own career took off. With her two small children, they live in suburban Maryland. Unfortunately, because she is of Asian parentage, her race has become an issue to her more vehement detractors. Recently, she used her weblog to lament what she calls an "Asian whore fixation" on the part of her enemies. She provides a Google link to these complaints. Very few of them appear to be about the issues she raises. Most of them seem to be about her.

Now, I've seen her on television. If we're going to dwell on ethnicity as a means of identification, her parents may both be from the Philippines, but I'm sorry, she's no kababayan. With that kinda spunk, we're talkin' Jersey Girl here! But her enemies don't even get that far; playing the racist card appears to bring them more amusement.

And the more you read it, the more sick it gets. Here I thought liberals were so much more accepting of diversity and all that. Suddenly I seem so -- oh, I don't know -- ENLIGHTENED!!!

Besides, if you know anything at all about Filipino culture, it is as much old-world Spanish as it is Asian, especially to those in their forties or older. And whatever part of it is Asian, is less Oriental than it is Polynesian-Malay. (The Filipino language, a k a Tagalog, is part of the latter family, as opposed to the former.)

Who knows, the USA might even have a black woman for president in 2008. But if we do, will the crossing of that barrier mean nothing, simply because the achiever doesn't fit certain preconceptions? And how is racial or gender equality supposed to be such a worthy goal, if some unseen ideological cabal dictates what and how that person is supposed to think, by virtue of who and/or what they represent?

Don't they at least have the right to be themselves?

Personally, I find some of Malkin's views a bit wanting. I'll admit, in my weaker moments, to wondering whether a few months in an internment camp would change her mind about what happened to Japanese-Americans during World War II. But I'm happy to report that the feeling soon passes. Because I can't really prove any of that. And besides, it matters less to me than what she has to say. And what she has to say is pretty sharp. So I wish whoever has a problem with Mrs Malkin would look at the problem they're having with themselves. Especially now that her family is becoming the object of their attacks.

Besides, Sal can't wait to meet her.