Goldberg actually scores extra points for hypocrisy because he embraces a blatant double standard while accusing others of having a double standard [emphasis added].

Now, I'm not asking you to do this so that you might be able to see through the glare of Obama's halo or the outlines of the media's staggering double standard when it comes to covering this White House. Rather, it is to grasp that the Obama administration has been astoundingly incompetent.

Lashing out at the town hall protesters, playing the race card, whining about angry white men and whispering ominously about right-wing militias is almost always a sign of liberalism's weakness - a failure of the imagination.

How has the Obama administration played “the race card” during the health care debate? Goldberg, as is his firm tradition of never actually practicing journalism, never bothers to explain or detail. He just likes the way the accusation sounds. Conservatives love to tar the other side by suggesting they have a habit of “playing the race card” and that it makes them weak and untrustworthy. Right-wingers like Goldberg can't stand it when folks start “playing the race card.”

Except when Glenn Beck does it.

Except when Glenn Beck claims Obama has a deep seated hatred for white people and when Beck calls Obama a “racist.” When Beck recent unfurled that shocking race-card claim, Goldberg (a frequent guest on Beck's show) shifted into apologist mode and quickly explained to National Review readers why it was perfectly acceptable. The way Goldberg saw it, if Goldberg thought the President of the United States was a racist, than he ought to say so. If Beck thought the incendiary claim was true, than Beck practically owed it to his fans to play the race card. Hard.

So to review: Goldberg concocted his claim the White House was “playing the race card” and then condemned the phantom ploy. This, just weeks after Goldberg defended Beck's race-based smear of Obama.

Great work, National Review.

UPDATED: Don't know if Goldberg is still on his comical search for Nazi and Hitler posters, references, etc. among town hall mini-mob members (he claims they don't exist), but if he is, he might want to check this latest viral sensation. And yes, she's a “conservative” “Republican.”