MONA CHAREN ON JAYSON BLAIR, on the spiffy new Washington Times Website:

I don't believe for a minute that the New York Times is populated by racists making life bitter for black journalists. But if the accusation were lodged against the Bush administration or Citibank or Fox News, who doubts that the New York Times would believe it and broadcast it to the world? So how do you like them apples, Howell Raines?

Much ink has been spilled over the question of whether Mr. Blair got special treatment because he was black. Columnist William Raspberry, among many others, has argued that many white journalists have committed similar transgressions. Very true. But there has never, to my knowledge, been a case in which a white reporter was repeatedly reprimanded for errors and mistakes but nonetheless promoted and given plum assignments. You need not be a mind reader to guess that editor Howell Raines is determined to see black reporters succeed — no matter what.

I hate the condescension inherent in that liberal pose. There are hundreds of black journalists at the top of their field — Thomas Sowell, Gwen Ifill, Keith Richburg, to name just three. Black journalists (doctors, lawyers, accountants, educators, etc.) require nothing more than that we ignore their race. To treat them as hothouse flowers is so insulting. It is also unjust to others.

Though the New York Times will be the last institution to understand this, the moral of the Jayson Blair story is simple: You do not put an end to racial injustice by reversing it.