There should be a political “glass house alert” because partisan stone-throwing on race has become a shattering game of catch. Democrats are dancing euphorically as they watch Republican Virginia Sen. George Allen’s downward spiral since referring to one of his rival’s campaign supporters as “macaca,” — an apparent European racial slur likening to monkeys those from South Africa. The focus on this has been staggering with Allen’s once robust lead now reduced to five points in front of Democratic challenger and former Reagan Navy Secretary James Webb.

It’s unfortunate that a few years ago equal fanfare wasn’t made of West Virginia Senator Democrat Robert Byrd’s repeated use of the term “white n*****.” Less egregious, but still unpardonable, is the relative pass given to Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., in January 2004 when she stereotyped Indian-Americans by saying that Mahatma Gandhi ran a gas station in St. Louis. Also attributing monolithic assumptions to this demographic was Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del. In July of this year, he was barely grazed by the press after asserting that, “You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent — I’m not joking.” And of course in 2003, Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., blamed the Jews for our going into Iraq and later had to apologize. Press scrutiny on this was so ephemeral as to border on the nonexistent.