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For many of the younger folk who have not experienced television as diverse as it is today or cannot recall what it was like to not have the option to consume any culture at any time via the internet, comprehending the entire concept behind Don Cornelius‘s success may prove difficult. In fact, fully comprehending how a concept like Soul Train– a show devoted to delivering to the mainstream a culture for so long marginalized– could succeed requires the ability to adopt the anachronistic mentality of the time, to see the world as it was and find the niche market that Cornelius saw and made mainstream. With the news of his death today, we can only look at the world as it when he arrived to change it, and compare it to what he leaves behind. With those markers, it is clear that his influence expanded well beyond the worlds of disco and soul music.

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Lawrence O’Donnell has taken a fair amount of heat for his interview with Herman Cain this week, where the host questioned both Cain’s involvement (or lack thereof) in the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. Last night, O’Donnell faced a panel made of MSNBC staples Al Sharpton and Melissa Harris Perry and The Grio‘s Goldie Taylor who had a word or two to say about his performance, the strongest coming from Harris Perry, who questioned why white politicians alive at the time did not get “litmus test” questions on their positions on race at the time.

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We already knew sometime around 10:30 last night that today’s episode of Morning Joe was going to be eventful, it was just a question of how. Joe Scarborough, who was never too keen on the health care bill, made hyperbolic Margaret Thatcher and Apolo Ohno references, but it was Tufts history professor Peniel Joseph‘s suggestion that passing the bill was on the same historic and moral level as the 1964 Civil Rights Act that finally made him snap.

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Wow. Rachel Maddow will not be giving the Tea Partiers any sort of free pass and once you watch this you may understand why. Specifically, Maddow is criticizing (actually, she’s eviscerating…no joke) what she calls the Tea Partiers “embrace of racist history” — in this case, a call for the return of segregation-era literacy tests.