Note to white people: Whenever an interview or news conference contains the phrase: “I am not a racist,” you’ve already lost the argument.

The latest individual of the Caucasian persuasion to make this forthright declaration of stupidity is actor Liam Neeson. It was an attempt to defuse an earlier admission that he was once intent on attacking a random black person after a friend had been raped.

Virginia Gov. Ralph ‘Moonwalk’ Northam was no doubt following Neeson’s career suicide closely in hopes that this latest racial faux pas would overshadow his problem. Namely that Northam had not pursued a random black person, but instead had portrayed a random black person in a yearbook photo from the 1980s.

Northam – one of those rare individuals who when confronted with career conflagration goes to the store for more lighter fluid – decided to hold a news conference and get everything out in the open.

Crisis consultants advise clients that if they can change the subject it is sometimes possible to survive. What they don’t advise is changing the subject by introducing an entirely new crisis.

In front of a sea of reporters, Northam denied he was in the yearbook photo, but volunteered that he’d donned blackface to portray Michael Jackson in a “Moonwalk contest”. The only way the event could have been more damaging was if Ralph had entered wearing a sequined glove or claimed some of his best friends were black.

It proved once again that Northam is so culturally tone deaf he didn’t recognize that admitting to dressing like a pedophile might be an additional problem. Northam’s political judgement is so bad, he had to be saved from demonstrating his version of the moonwalk by Mrs. Northam’s horrified intervention.

Northam’s prospects for finishing his term were bleak. Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax is black, and it would have created an elegant symmetry for a disgraced white man – guilty of a race crime – to resign in favor of a young African-American.

Unfortunately, it seems that Fairfax may be a tad too virile.

A California college professor accuses Fairfax of sexually assaulting her at the 2004 DNC national convention. Something about this charge reminds me of, what was it? OH, YES! Now I remember, the guilty–until–proven–innocent attack on Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

Vanessa Tyson’s sexual assault account is much different from Christine Ford’s. She knows the exact date, she knows the exact location, friends confirm she told them immediately after it happened and Tyson is a Democrat who has nothing to gain from going public.

This means Fairfax should be toast, but in fact he’s only feeling a little heat.

The National Organization of Women called for Fairfax’ resignation, but none of the Democrats who were so eager for Kavanaugh to withdraw have said a word about Fairfax and his much more credible sexual assault accusation.

The remarkable silence and absence of the usual blame game reminds you of the time when Democrats were either wearing white Klan robes or sporting blackface. Their contention then was when it came to sex, black folks just couldn’t help themselves.

But even if Northam and Fairfax are gone, Virginia’s attorney general is a Democrat, so the seat stays in leftist hands, even if Mark Herring is unfortunately white. But Herring admitted this week that he also did a temporary makeover and wore blackface during the 1980s.

Maybe Herring was trying to flood the zone. If every amateur Democrat minstrel show wannabe confessed in the same week, there might be too many of them for any one miscreant to be targeted. Herring could escape the blackface blackball in spite of the fact last week he demanded Northam resign for the same offense.

What amazes me is the left’s enthusiasm for blackface. I grew up among rednecks in West Texas and the only blackface I ever saw was in really old movies. By the 1970s even we had figured out a visit to the Shinola spa was a bad idea.

As this is written, the trio is still clinging to office. When I saw a Washington Post headline that read: “Despite protests and isolation strongmen can cling to power” I thought it was a story about Richmond’s Democrat bitter-enders.

Northam appears to be taking the Gaddafi option. Social justice warriors will have to flush him out a culvert before Northam will surrender the governor’s office. Even if he leaves, the chances of the groper or the remaining goober resigning are slim.

That’s because next in the line is Speaker Kirk Cox, who is both white and a Republican. We’ve learned when the left is presented with a choice between living up to its moral exhibitionism or retaining power, somehow power always seems to win.

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Copyright 2019 Michael Shannon, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Michael Shannon is a commentator and public relations consultant, and is the author of “A Conservative Christian’s Guidebook for Living in Secular Times.” He can be reached at [email protected].