Inserting Race Into The Race.

John McCain isn't a racist. In the weeks to come, you might see McCain attacking Barack Obama for flip-flopping, being inexperienced, or being wrong on the issues. But there's one thing you absolutely won't see: McCain attacking Obama on the basis of his blackness.

When you turn on the TV, you're not going to see an ad with a narrator intoning, "Obama is a black man, and he wants your vote -- but aren't black people mainly criminals and rappers? John McCain: the white choice."

In fact, you'll see quite the opposite from the McCain camp. Republicans will go to ridiculous lengths to make sure that nothing they say can be possibly construed as racially insensitive. As Bill Clinton learned the hard way, race is a touchy subject. Even the slightest racial error on the part of any candidate -- or a candidate's surrogate -- has the power to create an instant media feeding-frenzy.

Of course, Barack Obama knows this. He just chooses to deceptively attack McCain on the race issue anyways. Speaking in Springfield MO, Obama made this regrettable comment:

"Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name, you know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

In other words, Obama is politely accusing John McCain of running a blatantly racist and xenophobic campaign. Naturally, he has no evidence to back up this assertion. Obama has sunk to a brand new level of slimy politics: conjuring up the thought of an opponent's non-existent scare-tactics as a scare tactic. McCain wouldn't dream of attacking Obama on the basis of race, but Obama doesn't think twice about openly labeling McCain as a bigot.

This is a statement that the media needs to hold Obama accountable for. In a fair contest, the race card shouldn't just be off-limits for the white guy.