Today one finds a fairly typical George Will hit job on a “liberal” (complete with insults borrowed from the right blogosphere) and racial innuendo. The apparent purpose of this op-ed is to show that Barack Obama has no justification for opposing Leslie Southwick’s appointment to the 5th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals. Unfortunately, Obama has had little to say about it. That makes it hard for Will to criticize Obama’s position, so he turns instead to the position of “some” who are “liberal.”:

>But because he is a white Mississippian, many liberals consider him fair game for unfairness. Many say his defect is “insensitivity,” an accusation invariably made when specific grievances are few and flimsy.

Kind of like this accusation–which doesn’t seem to belong to anyone in particular (least of all Obama).

He continues:

>To some of Southwick’s opponents, his merits are irrelevant. They simply say it is unacceptable that only one of the 17 seats on the 5th Circuit is filled with an African American, although 37 percent of Mississippians are black. This “diversity” argument suggests that courts should be considered representative institutions, like legislatures, and that the theory of categorical representation is valid: People of a particular race, ethnicity or gender can be understood and properly represented only by people of the same category.

We’re meant to conclude that these are also Obama’s reasons–even though they’re not. One wonders, therefore, what they’re doing here in the middle of a piece about Obama’s opposition to a judicial appointee. If perhaps George Will finds Obama’s stated reasons unsatisfactory–then he ought to stick that those. Thus we have a fairly classic red herring–change the subject from what Obama has said to things that will inflame right wing passions (racial quotas, identity politics, judicial activism, etc.).