It is a healthy development that candidates for public office are required to eschew racist remarks. It is likewise a healthy development that all their remarks are carefully scrutinized for any hint of racist attitudes.

But like any other healthy development, this one can be taken too far. It is not good for the nation’s political well-being, let alone fair to candidates, to twist innocuous remarks into racist ones. Groups like African Americans and Jews that have historically been the victims of genuine racism can — perhaps understandably — be too quick to see bigotry where it does not genuinely exist.

A case in point is the recent controversy over remarks made by Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) concerning his fellow senator and colleague Barack Obama (D-Ill.). Those remarks have been interpreted by some as racist, but we think they are a case of confusing shadow for substance.

While Sen. Obama is not the first African American presidential candidate to be articulate and charismatic, it is fair to say that many Americans have responded favorably precisely because he represents the triumph of the civil rights struggle and is seen as someone who might take American politics beyond those racial divisions that have been successfully mitigated by the civil rights struggle.

Moreover, Sen. Obama is the son of an immigrant father and thereby represents another great American tradition — that of the hardworking child of immigrants succeeding in this country.

The liberal New Republic just featured a column by Peter Beinart that attributes Sen. Obama’s rapid rise to the confluence of a number of factors, in addition to his own impressive achievements.

According to Mr. Beinart, Sen. Obama “benefits enormously from … the collapse of crime as a political issue [and] welfare reform” as well as from his status as one of the African American liberals who, by contrast with white liberals, “are considered authentically devout, and, thus, bridge-builders” in an age of rising religious divisions.

This may be better said than Sen. Biden’s version, but it is not all that different in meaning, and in neither case is it racist.

Sen. Biden’s words may have been a tad too rough around the edges, but this should not make him subject to attacks as a racist.

New York

Determining the limits of executive-branch power

From James P. Rudolph, attorney at law

I read with relief an article by Klaus Marre (thehill.com, “Democrats, White House spar over Iran and Iraq,” Jan. 19) in which it was suggested that House Democrats, at the urging of Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), have recommended reexamining – and perhaps rewriting – the statute Congress passed in the wake of 9/11 giving the president the authority to use “all means necessary” to combat terrorism. The statute to which I am referring is, of course, the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, or AUMF. I applaud Mr. Hoyer’s courage and I wish him success in his endeavor to rein in what has been an unbridled and unchecked executive branch. …

One way of redressing the imbalance is – as Mr. Hoyer proposed – to discuss and openly debate the merits of AUMF. The Supreme Court already has said that the president never has a blank check, even during war. But if Congress gives the president statutory authority to act, his power, according to Justice Jackson in the seminal Steel Seizure case, is at its zenith. Contrariwise, the president’s authority to act is at its nadir when Congress expresses its disapproval.

Thus, Congress, with all its constitutionally derived wartime powers, has a role and an obligation to add something to the debate over whether the president should move forward with his plan to push an additional 21,000 troops into Iraq. I therefore commend the Democrats in general and Mr. Hoyer in particular for initiating this much-needed conversation about the limits of executive power.

La Jolla, Calif.

Make them talk until government shuts down

From Ben Ansbacher

(Regarding article, “Senate Dems to try again on the ‘surge,’” Feb. 7.) Why does everyone assume that failure to pass cloture kills a bill? Why don’t the Democrats call the Republicans’ bluff and make them keep talking, day and night?

If they should go past Feb. 15, wouldn’t the Republicans get the blame for shutting down the government?

Burlington, N.C.