In a discussion of the bizarre new rules of engagement (that all criticism of Obama is racist) Ruth Ann Dailey sees little hope for racial absolution:

When Republicans finally started paying serious attention to the man who was poised to pluck the crown right out of Hillary Clinton's hands, Mr. Obama had already been running for a year, and the non-vetting he'd received from an entranced media passed for the real thing. The national gatekeepers of all-the-news-that-fits-our-squint deemed these Republican latecomers with their suspicious questions to be racists.

The Democrats' perversion of the race issue has gotten so brazen that someone who merely points out the undeniably true -- like Mr. Obama's controversial ties to radicals or felons of any race or nationality -- is accused of racism. Left-wing politicos have opined that racism motivates even Democratic voters who don't support Mr. Obama (as if ideas don't matter), while James Carville, the Dems' talking head from the House of Slytherin, fears rioting if Mr. Obama loses.

And the Republican Party elders, to the chagrin of us younger conservatives, have accepted the Democrats' rules of engagement. Apparently, racial absolution will have to wait another decade.

I have to say, though, that back in August when I linked a couple of Dorhn/Ayers videos, and titled the post "Racist Videos -- watch at your own risk!", I meant it only as satire. Just trying, you know, to be funny, in the hope of entertaining readers in need of a mild lift.

I really didn't expect that what was humor to me could become a serious political argument to others.

But it happened. It came crashing down on my addled head that what was satire for me had become a deadly serious argument when the Associated Press decided that condemning Bill Ayers (once McCain campaign finally did that) was a form of racism. Because, you know, even though Ayers is white, some terrorists are other than white, and so bringing up Ayers is a "racially tinged" argument.

As if Ayers criticism being "racially tinged" wasn't bad enough, yesterday I discovered that Bill Ayers has become the new Willie Horton.

That's no fair! What used to be satire has become so tinged with serious political reality that I can't recognize either anymore.

I do have a lingering question, though. If I think it's funny, should I care whether others think it's serious?

Or is that not funny?

I wish this all didn't remind me of a lesbian feminist lighbulb joke, but it does, so once again, I'll close with that funny-to-one-side-only, paradoxical classic:

Q. How many feminist lesbians does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A. That's not funny!

But as a lesbian in Berkeley told me years ago when I told her this joke, it really isn't funny!

So don't just sit there laughing.

Some things are too serious to ever be tinged with humor.