Jonah Goldberg Says Obama Is Getting Off Easy Because He Is Black - Jonah, If You Weren't A Jew, Would You Be Writing Opinion For The LA Times?

Obama's getting off easy!
The GOP would be hitting a white candidate twice as hard.

Jonah Goldberg
October 14, 2008

Over the weekend, civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis of Georgia sold off another chunk of his reputation by coughing up some absurd partisan talking point about how the McCain-Palin campaign reminds him of that of Dixiecrat segregationist George Wallace. And, for the last week, a host of reporters -- not just liberal pundits -- have ominously fretted that the McCain campaign's use of former domestic terrorist Bill Ayers as an issue is a racist ploy. The Washington Post's Anne Kornblut, for instance, wrote that Sarah Palin's comment that Barack Obama was "palling around with terrorists" is "a turn of phrase that critics said was racially loaded."

If Obama were a white Democratic nominee named Barry O'Malley, the GOP would be going after him twice as hard. But many liberals would still caterwaul about fomenting hatred and racism, because that's what they always do.