Jesting pilot - Ed Rollins' poor judgment in spreading rumors about black ministers during the New Jersey gubernatorial campaign - Editorial

ED ROLLINS ended, at least for the time being, his political career the 1990s way--not by losing an election (he won), nor by abandoning his party (he recovered nicely from his stint with Perot), nor by getting caught in lies (he is candid to a fault). But by uttering a few dozen indiscreet words.

We doubt Mr. Rollins wholly fabricated his boast that the Whitman campaign spent $500,000 to keep black ministers from flacking for Governor Florio and Democratic campaign workers from pounding the pavement. Contrary to the public fury, however, he didn't invent "walking-around money," nor pull from thin air the notion of contributing to black churches for untoward purposes. Consider this 1976 AP report: "The Jimmy Carter campaign gave donations to black ministers who supported him in the California primary and paid out other 'street money' that was not properly accounted for."

Such tactics do not deserve a prominent place in civics textbooks, but they do not seem to be illegal in New Jersey, de facto or de jure. Mr. Rollins's sin wasn't what he may have done but what he said; he violated a speech code forbidding utterances that treat blacks as a mix of good and bad, wise and foolish, shrewd and gullible, active and apathetic--just like the rest of us, in fact. In order not to commit the same offense, his critics must maintain that Mr. Rollins 1) won the election illegitimately (by bribing black ministers) and 2) slandered blacks everywhere (by lying about bribing black ministers). It is cognitive dissonance for fun and political profit.

Mrs. Whitman has joined the charade by running into the arms of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who, if held to standards like those applied to Ed Rollins, would have been drummed out of the "racial healing" business long ago. She saw a need to demonstrate her good intentions by associating with black leaders; she chose the wrong ones and, like Mr. Bush before her, gave standing and credit to her opponents rather than her allies in the black community. They in turn sensed a weakness and conformity that threaten a meaningless four years in the statehouse. We hope she proves them wrong, and she has a reasonable excuse on this occasion.

Indeed, the public hypocrisy about protected groups is so pervasive that one wonders how Mr. Rollins could have forgotten about it. But those who live by the gaffe die by the gaffe.