This is your Civil Rights Commission on acid. The liberals in charge have departed and Bush appointed conservative Republicans to take their place. .

Over the past three years, Mary Frances Berry and Cruz Reynoso presided over U.S. Civil Rights Commission meetings that were so frigid that members would sometimes snap at one another or sit back and stare coldly. But after Berry, the liberal chairman, who is black, and Reynoso, the liberal vice chairman, who is Latino, stepped down Tuesday, the composition of the commission changed. President Bush appointed a black Republican, Gerald A. Reynolds, to replace Berry as chairman, and another black Republican, Ashley L. Taylor, to replace Reynoso as a member. Abigail Thernstrom, an independent who is conservative and white, became the new vice chairman.

What was a 5 to 3 liberal majority is now a 6 to 2 conservative majority.