Before Barack Obama ascended to the presidency, his supporters lauded the impact he could have in the nation’s highest office helping America “transcend race.” But in an ironic shift, writes National Review Online’s Jonah Goldberg, it is Obama’s supporters who are now working to cultivate the notion that ”if you question his tax policies, energy plans, or health-care ambitions, you are ‘hoping he will fail’ — and that, with the help of roundabout reasoning, is tantamount to hoping we cannot transcend race.”

For instance, actress Janeane Garofalo summed up the tea parties thusly: “This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up.”

A more sophisticated version comes from Princeton professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell, who finds racism in complaints that socialized medicine would result in fewer Americans “taking responsibility” for their own health care. “What we know over the past 25 years,” she told NPR, “is that language of personal responsibility is often a code language used against poor and minority communities.” In an ABC News story about how racist white militias are somehow connected to town-hall protests, Mark Potok of the dismayingly left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center insists Obama has “triggered fears among fairly large numbers of white people in this country that they are somehow losing their country.”

But opposition doesn’t make someone a racist, notes ABC New’s John Stossel: “Come on. Every president eventually is criticized by the media – even one as ‘transcendent’ as Obama. The president’s supporters should engage his critics with facts, not charges of racism.” And ultimately, Goldberg writes, “transcending race would require treating Obama like any other president. Which is pretty much exactly what conservatives have been doing. Seriously, if Hillary Clinton were president, would conservatives really be rolling over for the same health-care plan because she’s white?”