Left wing Democrats from New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd to former President Jimmy Carter are chiming in to proclaim that critics of President Obama’s policies are racists. Those making such unsubstantiated claims are revealing that they have no substantive response to the arguments of the critics and so are just resorting to name-calling.

President Obama’s left wing allies have become increasingly hysterical after the president’s nationally televised address last Wednesday to a Joint Session of Congress failed to ignite increased public support for his proposed government takeover of health care.  The most recent polls show still increasing majorities opposing the president’s plan.

In my American Spectator column yesterday at  I explain how the president's address last Wednesday was filled with numerous misleading falsehoods. Over the past couple of days The Wall Street Journal and others have documented further false and misleading statements in that speech.  But instead of responding substantively to these criticisms, President Obama’s allies have resorted to slandering all the critics as racists.  The deceptive campaign for the health overhaul and the non-substantive name-calling response to critics is only further alienating public majorities, as the polls show.

We see the exact same problem on other issues, such as global warming and proposed cap-and- trade legislation to counter it.  The advocates of man-caused global warming and cap-and-trade have already admitted that they can’t defend their positions in debate.  But they continue to advocate their positions with name calling and sneering at opponents.

At the same time, we see evidence of inappropriate racial considerations in the policies of the Obama administration. Career prosecutors at the Justice Department brought charges against a unit of the Black Panthers after they engaged in egregious voter intimidation tactics during the 2008 elections -- displaying weapons and insulting white voters.  But even after these prosecutors had won in court, the Obama Justice Department dropped all charges. 

Similarly, after a crowd of black students severely beat a white student on a school bus in Belleville, Mo. a couple of days ago, the Obama Justice Department has shown no interest in opening an investigation.  As The National Review commented yesterday: 

“If the races were reversed, there is no doubt that the Civil Rights Division under Acting Assistant Attorney General Loretta King would already have issued a press release about its intent to probe the beating and pursue a possible hate-crimes prosecution under 18 U.S.C. §245.”

Peter Ferrara is General Counsel of the American Civil Rights Union and Director of Entitlement and Budget Policy for the Institute for Policy Innovation.  He served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan, and as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under the first President Bush.