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Glenn Reynolds links to liberal blogger Ed Cone slagging the Reverend Freddy's Fashion Mart for endorsing LoanMax, an outfit that provides high-interest loans to high-risk borrowers. What would Cone prefer? That poor people just not be allowed to borrow money? Or that banks be required to float risky loans (which would, of course, just raise interest rates for everyone)? See Mike Lynch in the April 2002 Reason for a fuller discussion of the misguided attack on those who provide financial services to the poor (Lynch focuses on the check cashing industry, but his argument applies here, too).

As for Cone's approving link to a neo-Prohibitionist rant against the Malt Liquor industry, I'll just suggest that when men have nothing to do but spend all afternoon getting blitzed, to blame the bottle is a rather facile way of not dealing with an underclass culture that devalues work and family, developed thanks in large part to a devasting legacy of liberal social programs (and I won't defend Sharpton for supporting those).