NY Times Op-Ed

I read two really great NY Times Op-Ed columns just now.

The first one is No Laughing Matter by Thomas L. Friedman. It's a bi-partisan look at what our economy needs and what Friedman thinks each candidate needs to do to help our country recover.

The second column is The Push to 'Otherize' Obama by Nicholas D. Kristof. This one is about how ridiculous it is that people are still questioning whether Obama is a Christian. Here's a quote from this one:

"In fact, of course, Mr. Obama took his oath on the Bible, not — as the rumors have it — on the Koran. He is far more active in church than John McCain is.

(Just imagine for a moment if it were the black candidate in this election, rather than the white candidate, who was born in Central America, was an indifferent churchgoer, had graduated near the bottom of his university class, had dumped his first wife, had regularly displayed an explosive and profane temper, and had referred to the Pakistani-Iraqi border ...)

What is happening, I think, is this: religious prejudice is becoming a proxy for racial prejudice. In public at least, it’s not acceptable to express reservations about a candidate’s skin color, so discomfort about race is sublimated into concerns about whether Mr. Obama is sufficiently Christian."

I think it is extremely sad if this is even true for some Americans. There shouldn't be any sort of prejudice of course, but if people are disguising racial prejudice as religious prejudice, well, that just lessens my faith in Americans.