Tony Blankley of the Moonie Times reveals THE PLAN. It’s obvious that Republican strategists have huddled together to discuss how they can attack a Negro without getting blamed for attacking a Negro. You can’t talk about Obama’s race or black culture. You have to say that the candidate doesn’t know his place. You can’t say that Negros belong on the lower strata of society, so you have to make it personal. You aren’t attacking all Negros, just this particular Negro. This Negro is arrogant and full of pride. Pride comes before a fall. And you get bonus points if you can utilize some biblical passages to drive home your point. Blankley’s column gets an A-Plus. It covers all the bases. Following the strategy that the best defense is a good offense, Blankley leads by charging that Obama is making false accusations of racism.

It’s getting tricky to know how to refer to he who presumes to be the next president. It was made clear several months ago that mentioning his middle name is a forbidden act. (Pass out more eggshells.) Then, having nothing honorable to say, Obama warned his followers last week that Sen. McCain would try to scare voters by pointing to Obama’s “funny name” and the fact that “he doesn’t look like all the presidents on the dollar bills.”

Now, putting aside for the moment the racial component of His warning, what are we to make of the “funny name” reference? Many people have “funny” names. Some people think my last name — being very close in spelling to the adverbial form for the absence of content — is funny.

That is the INOCULATION LEDE. Don’t accuse Tony Blankley of being a racist. Hell…is it racist to make the point that Blankley’s columns are empty of content? No? So what’s the problem with using Obama’s middle name to create a visceral appeal to xenophobia? Also, if you capitalize all Obama pronouns it makes it look like the Negro thinks he is GOD. Speaking of which, let’s get to that biblical stuff.

One has to go back to Exodus 3:13-14 to find such strict instructions concerning the use of a name. Moses explained: “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” And God said to Moses, “I Am Who I Am.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I Am has sent me to you.'”

So perhaps we can call Him, for short, Sen. I Am (full code name: I Am who you have been waiting for).

Everyone knows that GOD is a white dude (with a long beard), so who does this Negro think that he is? He is who he is (that’s the title of this editorial, by the way). Did I mention that this Negro doesn’t know his place?

Another aspect of the now-infamous dollar-bill incident that has gone unmentioned is Sen. I Am’s choice of the dollar-bill reference itself.

He could have just said He doesn’t look like other presidents. Even that is a little too cute for the nasty little point He slyly was trying to make, but at least He would be identifying Himself merely with the universe of American presidents. But His overweening pride found such company too base and demeaning for Him. So He needed to include Himself in the grander company of George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Jefferson and perhaps Andy Jackson.

Obama’s point was that McCain’s accusations about Obama’s arrogance were a way of saying ‘The Negro doesn’t know his place.’ Tony Blankley’s response is to agree.

Perhaps I shouldn’t dwell on these matters, but the more I watch this man the more stunned I am at His overconfidence and towering pride.

Did I mention that this Negro doesn’t know his place?

All of us have our shortcomings, of course. But there is none so dangerous both to a man and to those for whom he has responsibility than the sin of pride. In the sixth century, Pope Gregory the Great recognized that pride breeds all the other sins and is therefore the most serious offense. St. Thomas Aquinas reaffirmed that pride is rebellion against the very authority of God.

Let me quote a private e-mail correspondent, who states the case better than I could: “Pride indeed is the cardinal vice — it swings open the door to most of the other theological vices, and undermines the classical virtues of prudence, courage and justice. It thrives, not on what one has, but on what others do not have. And even when one has diligently practiced the most admirable virtues, there always lurks the danger that at some moment one will look in the mirror and say: ‘Oh my! What a wonderful person I am!’ Thus does the vice lunge from its hiding-place.”

The genius of THE PLAN is that they actually want us to react the way that I am reacting. Then they hold up the evidence to say, “See, you can’t criticize this Negro without them calling you a racist.” And everyone hates being accused of racism. Even racists.