Bob Herbert wrote a column for the New York Times in which he defends Barack Obama and condemns John McCain. The black liberal columnist charges that McCain is running a racist campaign, and tries to portray Obama as the ‘Other.’ Additionally, Herbert says, McCain is using Rovian tactics to smear the black Democratic nominee.

Herbert is right about McCain’s campaign trying to smear Obama and running, to a degree at least, a negative campaign. When reports surfaced that Obama did not visit United States troops in Germany, allegedly because reporters were not going to accompany him on the trip, the McCain campaign instantly responded, portraying Obama as a man who does not care about the troops, and who only ’supports’ them when doing so is politically convenient.

That is nasty.

But it is not more nasty than what Barack Obama and his staffers are doing to John McCain. They too are smearing. They too are running a negative campaign. They too try to make McCain look as bad as possible.

It is all part of the game.

There is one reason for the above; politics. They run negative campaigns because it works.

What does not have anything to do with the criticism and attacks leveled at Obama, however, is his skin color.

It seems that liberals activists (although especially African-Americans) have trouble differentiating racism from politics as usual and even from normal, fair criticism. There is literally no reason to assume that McCain is running a racist campaign. In fact, in today’s day in age, running a racist campaign would be disastrous. Common sense dictates that one may have won elections back in the 1960s on such a racist platform, but not in 2008. In 2008 polls show that Americans are more likely to vote for a black man than for a woman. They also show that McCain has more trouble convincing Americans to vote for him because of his age than Obama has because of his race. Additionally, Americans not only seem to have broken with the racist past of their country, they even vehemently oppose racism of any kind. Sure, there is still racism here and there, and especially prejudices are alive and well, but using racism for political purposes will only result in one losing elections.

The above is exactly why Herbert and Obama’s campaign are constantly trying to portray McCain as a racist, or at least as someone running a racist campaign. They did the same to Hillary Clinton, even though the Clintons were very popular among blacks and do not have one racist bone in their body. Accusing someone of racism is politically beneficial; it will help garnering support out of sympathy and, if you repeat a lie often enough, people will in the end believe it. In other words; repeat the lie that McCain is a racist often enough, and before you know people will say ‘racist’ when you ask them what the first thing is that pops up in their head when they hear the name “John McCain.”

Of course, that is all part of politics as well. What’s sad and surprising is not that Obama’s campaign is doing it; what is sad is that Herbert and other columnists play along.