OLD RELIABLE - AT 7:46 A.M. ET:  The cry of "racism" is the standard battle cry of the left.  When in doubt, charge racism.  It had to happen with Mr. Obama in the White House.  I'm surprised it happened this soon.

The reckless left wants us to believe that Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst toward President Obama - "You lie!" - was racially motivated.  Now Jimmah Carter has joined in the fun:

"I think it's based on racism," Carter said in response to an audience question at a town hall held at his presidential center in Atlanta. "There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president."

I wonder how Jimmah knows what's in Joe Wilson's mind.  This is a man - Carter, I mean - who has overlooked the most profound bigotry in the Arab world against Christians and Jews, a man who said, while running for president in 1976, that he understood people who wanted to keep their neighborhoods ethnically pure.  But he denounces Wilson as if his own background was Ivory clean.

As I've said here before, there are of course racists.  Of course, some small-minded people will never accept Barack Obama.  But to smear people people with he "r" word so loosely is not only corrupt and mean-spirited, it is likely to create a backlash.  And it is not doing President Obama any good.

I'm afraid we'll have more of this, and it's likely to extend into foreign policy.  I have no doubt that some misguided souls will warn us that if we don't reelect Mr. Obama in 2012, it will "offend" nations of color around the world, and possibly cause trouble for us, maybe even violence.   

So far the White House has publicly disassociated itself from irresponsible cries of racism, but the president must do so himself, and publicly, pointing out that Americans know the difference between racism and legitimate criticism, and saying that he expects the latter. 

And reckless columnists like Maureen Dowd of The New York Times, who have been stirring the pot, might be advised by editors at her paper to take a sabbatical.  No chance of that.

September 16,  2009