Ted Rall had been posting his cartoons at Daily Kos for several weeks. Over the long holiday weekend, he put up a post explaining that his cartoons had been banned from Kos because, in the words of a site administrator, his "depiction of Barack Obama as ape-like is intolerable." (You can see a sample of Rall's Obama on his site.) Rall's post is packed with outrage: "This is what the Democratic Party has come to: so unable to face criticism, whether from left or right, that they stifle opposing voices," he huffs. Then, when faced with charges of racism, Rall falls back on the old standby

Anyone familiar with me and my work knows I'm not racist.... It should be noted that my editors at a variety of American newspapers, magazines and websites, almost all of whom are left of center politically, some of whom are black and many of whom voted for Obama, have never expressed the slightest concern about the way I draw the president.

There needs to be some sort of an intervention technique for white people who have been accused of racism—maybe an anthropomorphic pencil that pops up on the screen and says "It looks like you're writing a blog post refuting charges that you're racist. Would you like help?" The first two pieces of advice that the talking pencil would offer would be:

1. Don't tell us you're not racist. Racism isn't an either-or proposition. It's complicated. Racism isn't always intentional. Racism is not always active. Racism can be about perception, and someone else's perception is out of your control. It's not a simple yes or no, and immediately denying your own racism throws your entire argument into doubt.

2. For the love of Christ, using the "some of my best friends/coworkers are black" argument is a terrible decision. Guess what? Arguing that nobody of a certain race should be offended because you know one or two members of a certain race who aren't offended? That's racist.

Based on the comments of the post, Kos commenters are by and large happy to see Rall go. Maybe if Rall had approached the situation as a conversation, rather than declaring himself to be the victim of a pro-Obama conspiracy, something useful would have come out of this. But I just don't see Rall's response to the controversy winning him any new fans.