Frank Rich is right to be outraged that John McCain is not being held to the same standard as Barack Obama in terms, to be blunt, of his association with religious wackos. Even though it is an unfortunate truth of American politics that when something looks like a racial issue it usually is one, Rich is trying to shoot the wrong elephant in this case. His theory is that McCain’s ties to Rev. John Hagee, whose ignominious YouTube repertoire matches Jeremiah’s Wright’s tit-for-tat and then some, have not been called into question by the media with the same fury still being unleashed on Obama because:

A sonorous white preacher spouting venom just doesn’t have the telegenic zing of a theatrical black man.

Maybe, but I think Rich comes nearer to the point when he says:

Mr. McCain is graded on a curve because the G.O.P. bar is set so low.

Rich talks about the grading curve in terms of racial politics, though what’s really at stake here isn’t the great construct race, but rather the great construct religion. McCain isn’t getting away with this because he’s white; McCain is getting away with this because he’s a Republican. Associations with religious zealots are to be expected of Republicans, and so no one is overly concerned about Hagee. And yet, the problem is not one of simple disinterest because McCain is operating within charted conservative territory. It is more malignant still. The problem is that the media and the electorate have given the GOP full license to be religious zealots, let alone to associate with them. Their religious beliefs have been validated as legitimate bedrock for a political point of view and the nation at large has never pretended to expect them to be secular, rational, or tolerant. The nation at large has, however, expected Democrats to be all of those things, and so Barack Obama came under fire. From my perspective this is open-and-shut, and pretty damn tragic.