Imagine, if you will, that Laura Bush invited to the White House a celebrity who had praised people who had murdered blacks and whose writings and utterances contained veiled references to the merits of assassinating President Clinton. Do you not think that the nation would be appalled and that the outrage would be so incandescent as to force Mrs. Bush to rescind the invitation?
Now imagine that so far from the First Lady revoking the invitation the White House Press Secretary actually defended it by asserting that the overall body of work of this celebrity includes many positive messages and that he shouldn't be judged on the basis of a few unfortunate artistic flourishes. Do you think that would fly? Should it?
Surely not, but if it wasn't Laura Bush who brought this celebrity into the White House, but rather Michelle Obama, and the invited guest was a rapper who praised a cop-killer and suggested that George Bush be "burned", well, then, judging by the left's indifference to Ms Obama's invitation to this gentleman, that's apparently no big deal.
It really is enlightening to see the sorts of people the Obamas consort with and how the left reacts to their associations. It tells us much about who they are.
Another guest at Ms Obama's soiree was a black female writer named Jill Scott who acknowledged in a column at Essence that she "winced" when she learned that a black male friend had married a Caucasian woman. "Winced"? Aren't we past that? Would a white poet receive a hearing in the White House if she had admitted that she winced when she learned that a white male friend had married a black woman?
Ms Scott denies that her comment was motivated by racism and she gives, I think, a reasonable explanation for why she said what she did, but how many white people have had their careers ruined for remarks that were just as innocent? Remember Trent Lott saying on the occasion of Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday that he would have made a fine president? No one has heard from Lott since. Indeed, how many people have been called racist for no other reason than that they opposed Mr. Obama's profligacy?
Apparently, what's considered racism when a white person says it is considered unexceptional when a black person says it. At least that seems to be the case in the Obama White House.