Jim Geraghty notes that Beto O’Rourke is getting newly bad press, and says that CNN correspondent Nia-Malika Henderson has a point when she writes that the former congressman “roams around, jobless (does he not need a job?) to find himself and figure out if he wants to lead the free world. This is a luxury no woman or even minority in politics could ever have.”
Maybe she’s right about that, but Henderson makes it sound like it’s an indictment of O’Rourke rather than just of the double standard. His vision quest “shows how much of his political identity is predicated on being white and male.” Is he supposed to refrain from doing things that would be criticized more harshly if he were a black woman? And if he doesn’t refrain, is it right to launch a criticism that is predicated on his being white and male?