Let me make this clear, Richard Cohen’s proposed “Farrahkan Test” is stupid and racist.

The idea that Obama some signs off on an editorial decision made by the daughter of his pastor is insane.

Henry at Crooked Timber, in his post, Six degrees of Louis Farrakhan, makes the following point:

There’s something else going on here. I strongly suspect that Barack Obama is being asked to condemn Louis Farrakhan not because there’s some bogus two-degrees-of-separation thing going on, but because Barack Obama is black, and because black politicians are supposed to condemn Louis Farrakhan before they can be trusted. This isn’t racism, but it’s an implicit double standard, under which black politicians have a higher hurdle to jump before they deserve public trust than white ones. More generally, this is a bad, wrongheaded, and even dangerous article. Richard Cohen shouldn’t have written it, and the Washington Post shouldn’t have printed it.

I will go further. This is explicitly, and intentionally racist.

BTW, Obama’s response, as given to Talking Points Memo is as follows:

I decry racism and anti-Semitism in every form and strongly condemn the anti-Semitic statements made by Minister Farrakhan. I assume that Trumpet Magazine made its own decision to honor Farrakhan based on his efforts to rehabilitate ex-offenders, but it is not a decision with which I agree.

Richard Cohen is a shanda before the goyim, and a miserable excuse for a human being.

This explains why he works writing openions for the Washington Post.