Tom Piatak

April 27, 2008

Over at NRO, Andrew McCarthy wonders why John McCain is willing to attack Obama over Hamas’ unsolicited endorsement of Obama, while declaring attacks on Obama based on Obama’s voluntary 20 year membership in Rev. Wright’s church off-limits.  A fair question.

The answer, which you won’t see at NRO, is that McCain knows that it’s perfectly safe to attack Obama over Hamas, and that he can even let surrogates insinuate that Obama is “anti-Semitic,” but that attacks over Rev. Wright carry the considerable risk of being deemed “racist.”  McCain knows that it is always safe to be seen as a supporter of Israel, but that being seen as a defender of America (and white Americans) against anti-American black nationalism is politically risky.  Of course, McCain is not the first American politician to act as if he were running for the Knesset, and he won’t be the last.