WHAT IF REPUBLICANS SAID THE OPPOSITE? THEY ALREADY DO

Christian Heinze of GOP12 approvingly quotes Condoleezza Rice:

While noting that she disagrees with the Romney-Ryan ticket on some issues, Condoleezza Rice tells Fox News that Democratic rhetoric about a "war on women" is beyond the pale.

"I'm quite comfortable that those who talk about a 'war on women' are not just engaging in hyperbole, it's far worse than that. It's condemning people who are reasonable and who are going to take into account the views of those who don't agree."

Heinze adds:

Imagine, for a second, if the Romney campaign accused Obama of waging a "war on whites" and talked about policies that they claimed damaged whites. There would be no Romney campaign anymore.

That's not exactly the analogous comparison. What if Republicans accused Democrats or liberals of waging a "war on men"? Would they be condemned for it?

No -- and we know this because right-wingers do this all the time. There's Kathryn Jean Lopez making the charge at National Review Online; there's Mrs. Instapundit, Dr. Helen Smith, doing the same; there's the "war against men" being denounced by Phyllis Schlafly, by Fox News Latino essayist Carli Eli, and others; oh, and there's also the "war against/on boys" (Christina Hoff Sommers, Janet Daley, and others).

Is it OK to talk about this? It always has been -- liberals and feminists complain, but who cares what they say? Raise the issue and pundits fall all over themselves to ponder whether boys are being harmed by schools not allowing them to indulge their rambunctiousness (hello, David Brooks) or whether the economic meltdown (and the Obama administration's response to it) hurt men particularly hard.

In any case, you can always say there's such a war -- if you do, you'll never be declared beyond the pale. Romney absolutely could have done it.