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I'm a racist.

In reality, I don't believe that to be true and neither would anybody who knows me on a personal basis, but according to Jimmy Carter, an irrelevant former US President widely considered to be one of the worst Presidents ever, I am a racist.

And he's just the most recent in a line of people using this tired argument. The race card gets played whenever liberals don't actually have an argument for something or when something isn't going their way. They figure it will distract from the facts or de-legitimize the opposition.

Maybe that worked when the Presidential campaign was heating up, but I think it's lost its luster. I mean, I have been called a racist so many times by people who, ironically, are judging me not by the content of my character, but by the color of my skin, that I almost don't even notice.

Here's the thing. Every single instance of my being called a racist has come as a result of me disagreeing with President Obama's policies. Never - NEVER - in my life have I ever been accused of racism or has it even been inferred that I am a racist, in any other situation.

That tells me something. It tells me that maybe I'm not racist. Maybe, just maybe, I don't agree with the President's agenda for philosophical, intellectual, or spiritual reasons.

Yet, out comes Jimmy Carter, right on the tail of Democrat Representative Hank Johnson of Georgia who claimed that if Joe Wilson is not punished for his outburst during President Obama's healthcare speech last week, people with "white hoods will ride through the countryside". He then went on to further compare Joe Wilson and the opposition to the current proposed healthcare legislation to the KKK (Wilson's outburst, though disrespectful, was not exactly inaccurate - the President had just finished saying that healthcare would not pay for illegal aliens, then, the day after the speech and outburst, amendments were made to ensure citizenship status was checked in order to become part of the program - amendments that had been proposed by Republicans and refused by Democrats before. If Joe Wilson was wrong, why amend the bill?).

The sad thing is I'm watching Conservative African Americans say, "How is it possible that I hate Barack Obama because he's black?" Or, are Carter and Johnson excluding them from their accusations, saying African Americans are capable of having an intelligent argument against healthcare but whites aren't? I mean, because that would sound, well, racist.

But of course, we learned with Sonia Sotomayor that it doesn't work that way. Regardless of the fact that there isn't an honest American who can say that if a white man said, "I believe that a white man will make a better decision than a Latina every time BECAUSE he's white" he wouldn't be fired from his job and crucified by the media, liberals said that Sotomayor saying the exact opposite, "A wise Latina will make a better decision than a white male every time because of the richness of her experience" is NOT racist.

I'm a white male. I forget sometimes that I'm not entitled to be discriminated against, libeled, slandered, offended.

So here's the liberal tactic - compare this:

CASE 1: President Obama states that even though he doesn't have the facts in the Professor Gates case, racial profiling is a problem and the police acted stupidly. So - he makes an assumption based not on fact, but on the color of the officer's skin - and then goes on to crucify an entire police department for it. In turn, Glenn Beck calls Obama a racist. Liberals get angry and organize a boycott Glenn Beck.

CASE 2: Former President Jimmy Carter and many other Democrats go on the airwaves to accuse 54% of the country (according to the latest polls of those opposed to the current healthcare reform bills) of being racist. That's hundreds of millions of Americans people. Liberals rally behind him and say he's correct.

Frankly it's disgusting. What's more disgusting is the silence from the White House. If Obama didn't agree with the Jimmy Carters and the Hank Johnsons of the world, if Obama truly was the great unifier he claimed to be, he would be denouncing the now-constant use of the race card. But apparently, that's not the case. His silence says, "Continue on. I agree."

The sad thing is that this is coming from the party who has repeatedly elected Senator Robert Byrd to office. In fact, Byrd has been the Dean of the Senate since 2003. Currently the oldest serving member of Congress, former Senate Leader for the Democrats, AND FOURTH in line for the Presidency, Robert Byrd is a former Exalted Cyclops for the KKK. Senator Byrd claims he didn't really have any interest in the Klan, but his personal writings show otherwise:

I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds. ”
— Robert C. Byrd, in a letter to Sen. Theodore Bilbo (D-MS), 1944,

and

"The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia and in every state in the nation."[

in a letter he wrote to the Grand Wizard.

Democrats, you have elected THIS man your leader on numerous occasions, you continue to elect him to Congress, and you have the nerve to call us racists because we have legitimate concerns with the President's proposed healthcare legislation?

I'd use the old pot and kettle saying, but I'm afraid I'd be called a racist.

J.E. Braun is the author of Paranoia, a 9/11 survivor's tale. Jim survived 9/11 but his life did not. Follow one man's journey through post-traumatic stress as he attempts to rediscover what once made life worth living. 10% of profits from sales of Paranoia will be donated to the Twin Towers Orphan Fund (www.ttof.org). For more information, visit www.jebraun.com.