Today's Wall Street Journal Best of the Web online column quotes the estimable Peggy Noonan's observation -- similar to one made in a recent post on this blog -- that President Obama can't stand to be made fun of. His pride won't allow it, his amour propre cannot countenance a joke at his own expense.
It then supplies the perfect rejoinder:
It is healthy for America that the president be criticized and even mocked. Deference to a Dear Leader has no place in a democracy. It's healthy for race relations too, that he be judged on his record rather than held to a lower standard in the name of racial progress. When a black politician is treated like any other politician, that's genuine progress.
If Obama had been subject to the usual rigors of politics in 2008 and before, and if his backers in the media and elsewhere had not been so keen before and during his presidency to deflect criticism by invoking race, he probably would have a thicker skin, better arguments and a deeper understanding of America. Then again, without the racial symbolism and all the accompanying baggage, he probably would still be the junior senator from Illinois (if that). Life is full of trade-offs.
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