The last two days of the convention were rather uneventful — except for Buchanan's surprising choice of a running mate: A BLACK FEMALE right-wing activist from Los Angeles named Ezola Foster. This news threw many of Pat's backers for a loop at first: partly because few of them had even HEARD of her, but also because this seemed like the same type of "racial inclusiveness" posturing that everyone (including the Reformers) had been deriding the Republicans for during their "we've got colored people, too" convention a few weeks earlier in Philadelphia.

Even I had to wonder where she suddenly materialized from, since prior to her nomination I didn't see a SINGLE non-white person amongst the Buchanan crowd. Did they call Rent-a-Negro? Yet there she was, waving and smiling and as African-American as you please.

Once they got a taste of Ms. Foster's rhetoric, however, the Buchananites fell madly in love with her. How could they not, since she's even MORE conservative, flag-loving and God-fearing than all of them put together! She's also rather photogenic and articulate to boot, like a black Dr. Laura — or a female Alan Keyes, to be more precise.

Yet while I don't doubt that any of her stated convictions are sincere, her record — which includes a membership in the John Birch Society, and even defending the police who beat up Rodney King — seems to go way beyond mere conservatism, or even some kind of self-hatred. It's more like a deliberate, spiteful DEFIANCE of traditional "black leaders" — as if her main goal in life is to piss off Maxine Waters!