When I first reported about Barack Obama’s aunt Zeituni Onyango some readers accused me of hypocrisy because I wrote weeks ago that Bristol Palin, Sarah Palin’s daughter, was off limits, as was her son Trig. The two cases were, according to these pro-Obama readers, equal.

Sadly, however, they are not.

Here is where they are different: the post was not about Onyango, but about Obama. It was further proof that Obama does not practice what he preaches. He talks about helping ‘the poor’ constantly, but he and his wife Michelle donate little to nothing to charity. Instead, he wants to take your money away, and give it to people such as his aunt, whom he refuses to help with his own money.

Palin wants teachers to teach students that “the best way” not to become pregnant is by not having intercourse. She does not, however, want to force any underaged girls not to become pregnant; she simply wants to teach them that if they refrain from having sex, they will not get pregnant. It can be quite safely assumed that she also taught her daughter this. Her daughter, however, made her own decisions in life, and acted differently.

But Palin does not want to force anyone to act like she would ‘like’ them to, Obama does.

So far for the comparison.

Overnight something else happened, and this is disturbing. Some conservatives have found out that Onyango is an illegal alien in the United States. She requested asylum, but the U.S. government did not grant her request. The government then told her she should leave the country, but she fled and stayed in the U.S.

Although it would be fascinating to hear this woman’s life story, those who go after both her and Obama on this subject are crossing the line of decency and normal political discourse. This aunt is not running for president, Obama is. It is fair to look at how he treats relatives, especially if he bragged about having great relationships with them in his books, but those relatives themselves cannot be touched.

Some readers of conservative blog Ace of Spades argued that Onyango’s status indicates Obama may have known his aunt was in the country illegally and may even have assisted her. If Obama was running on a strict anti-illegal immigration platform, calling on friends and relatives of illegal immigrants to report those people to immigration officials so they can be deported, Obama could potentially be criticized. But that is not the case. Obama is not pretending to be a hardliner on the issue of immigration.

Furthermore, Onyango is Obama’s aunt. If Obama knew she was here illegally, and he probably did, does anyone truly suggest he should have reported her to authorities? His own aunt? That is what the Hitler Jugend and youth organizations in the Soviet Union did. But in any normal, humane society, such behavior would be condemned as immoral, unthankful and worse. It would be betrayal of the worst kind: betrayal of one’s own relatives. It does not get much worse than that. Not in any decent society, at least.

Additionally, since the issue of Onyango’s status as an illegal alien does not tell us anything about Obama being a hypocrite or worse, the only net effect of making this a big issue is to attack a person who is not running for office. This woman should be considered off limits.

Lastly, there is one thing about Onyango’s illegal status that is significant: she donated more than $200 to Obama’s campaign. Foreigners, which Onyango is, are not allowed to donate to any campaign, however, and if they do so nonetheless, the campaign itself has to act by refusing to accept the money. There are many security checks that would normally prevent someone like Onyango from donating to Obama’s campaign, but the latter has made the conscious decision not to implement those checks other campaigns use.

In this regard, then, Onyango’s illegal immigrant status is only significant in so far that it once again shows that Obama accepts money from foreigners. On the other hand, that is nothing new. We already knew that - there is an abundance of evidence to back up this claim. As such, using Onyango as the evidence for this matter is nonsense and gives decent observers the impression that the ‘donation’ aspect is an excuse, not a reason to write about Onyango.

We have discovered Obama’s aunt, and it once again clear that Obama does not practice what he preaches when it comes to helping people and that his campaign accepts illegal contributions. But that should be the end of the Onyango story.

The left has crossed the line on a variety of occassions this year and there were rightfully called out when they did. The right should now be careful not to cross the line as well.