Obama's the Only One Playing the Race Card

Barack Obama's campaign has been unjustly accusing John McCain of appealing to racial prejudice, Charles Krauthammer argues in the Washington Post. McCain is taking the flak for what a few "agitated yahoos" shout at his rallies, he writes—a guilt by association that Obama seems to have escaped despite his ties to controversial figures such as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

The insinuations are all the worse because McCain has avoided using race even when it could have been justified, as with Wright, Krauthammer writes. Moreover, Obama has wielded race as a weapon himself, by declaring that McCain was attempting to frighten voters by saying his rival "doesn't look like all those other presidents." Krauthammer calls this “an extraordinary rhetorical feat, and a dishonorable one." (More the race card stories.)