This is bit of a touchy subject, but since the President has declared we're currently in the middle of another "teachable moment" on race and the Attorney General has urged me not to be a coward when it comes to discussing the issue, I figure I might as well dive right in.

A few months ago I was struck by this illustration of Condi Rice by Edward Sorel that appeared on the Vanity Fair web site:

Now, it goes without saying that editorial cartoonists drive home their arguments using lines instead of words: caricature and exaggeration are the tools of the trade. And it's also not a particularly stunning revelation to say that some liberals cartoonists have no qualms resorting to overt displays of racism when it suits their ideological needs.

Secretary Rice, who was at the time the most powerful African-American woman in the world (perhaps excluding Oprah), certainly bore the brunt of such treatment; she was called a "house nigger" in a cartoon by Ted Rall; Garry Trudeau had President Bush give her the nickname "Brown Sugar" in one of his Doonesbury strips; and syndicated cartoonist Pat Oliphant walked away with the booby prize for this:

It would be unfair to say all - or even most - cartoonists treated Secretary Rice this poorly. On the other hand, Oliphant was hardly an exception. In cartoon after cartoon, both in America and around the world, Rice was portrayed in the worst possible light. (See a sample of what I'm talking about here.)

Now stop and imagine what would happen if a cartoonist at a major media outlet were to draw a similar rendition of Michelle Obama with all of her features exaggerated in the most unflattering - and, let's be honest, racist - way.  The person would would be drummed out the business in days - if not sooner.

But, unlike with Secretary Rice, there are no such unflattering cartoons of Michelle Obama because no one dares draw them. Instead, we get cartoons like the following by Ed Wexler from a recent issue of US News & World Report:

If you sift through the editorial cartoons on Michelle Obama, you see much the same thing (I've collected a few examples here). Indeed, the only cartoon that even comes close to being unflattering toward Michelle was a deliberate piece of satire by Barry Blitt that ran on the cover of the New Yorker in June 2008. And we all remember the hand wringing and gnashing of teeth that caused among liberals who couldn't believe anyone would do such a thing.

For a media establishment that constantly pats itself on the back for its devotion to tolerance, diversity, and racial sensitivity, it's a rather striking double standard applied to two of the country's most prominent black women.