It's not okay to hint that Barack Obama is an appeaser, even if you're really suggesting that about Jimmy Carter. Even if it actually makes a good point.
It's not okay to say that Barack Obama won't do a good job of protecting the nation. That would be an unacceptable personal attack.
There are other examples--including the racism column from The New Republic that I linked to a few days ago--but the fact is that any attack on a black politician (as long as he's a Democrat) is either a thinly-veiled appeal to Americans' supposed subconscious racism or an irresponsible lowering of the level of discourse, even when the attack is a legitimate issue.
This isn't a new politics; it's the old politics of manipulating public opinion by trying to form a certain image of yourself and a certain image of your opponent. Barack Obama is fashioning himself as the candidate who is above it all, who can work on a bipartisan basis (to enact strongly partisan legislation, shhh!), and, on a deeper level, who can absolve us all of guilt about the racial discrimination in our past. John McCain, on the other hand, represents the old way of politics (hehe, he's old!): personal attacks--how dare he say I'm less than fully qualified to run for president! for example--and the like.
Okay, end rant. My next post will be the first in a series, hopefully, about the future of the Republican Party. You stay classy, small number of readers.
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