How did Toni Morrison's "first black president" become a racist? Political commentators now routinely receive Bill Clinton's remarks with the worst possible racial assumptions. The benefit of the doubt many progressives extended to Harry Reid or Joe Biden, by contrast, has been withheld from the president whose ties with blacks were once storied.

The new book "Game Change" reports that Harry Reid once privately said, "the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama — a 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect.'"

President Obama immediately absolved Reid because, as he said in a television interview, the majority leader was "a good man who's always been on the right side of history." Democrats' argument: context matters. But if context matters, why did the Clintons, and Bill Clinton still to this day, not earn the same presumption?

Consider Eugene Robinson. The Washington Post columnist wrote Tuesday that Reid's remark, "offended decorum but it was surely true." Robinson was therefore "neither shocked nor outraged" by what Reid said. "Much worse," Robinson concluded, was Bill Clinton's attempt to convince Ted Kennedy to not support Obama. The book reports Clinton told Kennedy, "a few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee."

Many pundits echoed Robinson's outrage. Al Sharpton said the Clinton comment was "much more disturbing" than Reid's. CNN's Roland Martin also said "African-Americans find that more offensive." MSNBC political analyst Michelle Bernard detailed why on Monday. Clinton's remark was "absolutely revolting," Bernard said. It's "almost as if" Clinton said, "'yes, massa, can I get you some coffee?'" she added, "That is a horrendous statement."

Horrendous? Well yes, if you cast Clinton's comments that way. But there is another plausible explanation. Obama had been a state legislator only a few years earlier. Veterans tend to resent the rising rookie who hasn't paid his dues. "Jack was out kissing babies while I was out passing bills," Lyndon Johnson said of John Kennedy.

It's telling that the first analysis of Clinton involved charges of racism. A man inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame is today consistently framed as prone to bigoted comments.

The Washington Post summarized those comments in a late January 2008 story headlined, "Black America Feels the Sting of Ex-President's Comments," citing Clinton's "fairy tale" and "hit job" remarks. Context was disregarded.

Clinton said Obama's consistent opposition to the war in Iraq was "the biggest fairy tale that I have ever seen." Some folks heard racial inferences. But were they really listening to Clinton?

Confronted with the accusations, Bill Clinton responded, "When he put out a hit job on me at the same time he called Hillary [Clinton] the senator from Punjab, I never said a word."

The case against Clinton soon expanded. "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88," Clinton told a reporter. "Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here."

A maelstrom followed. Yet wasn't Clinton's observation also—to borrow Eugene Robinson's phrase about Reid's remarks—"a truth, crudely put?" Days later, however, Robinson wrote a column accusing Clinton of "playing the race card."

Robinson's argument boiled down to the fact that Clinton failed to cite the more recent circumstance of John Edwards winning the South Carolina primary and losing the nomination. This, apparently, was enough for Robinson to ignore Bill Clinton's record on civil rights, look into his heart and see the race card. At the time, Robinson was unwilling to understand Clinton's remarks in the context he recently offered Reid.

Lest we forget, it could easily be argued that Obama's side was playing the race card at the time.

"Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964," Hillary Clinton said that January. "It took a president to get it done."

Is this not another "truth, crudely put?" Like suffragettes decades earlier, Hillary was making the rather conventional observation that activists' moral fight forced presidents to take up civil rights but it took Johnson to "get it done." The reform would never have come so quickly without King. But not even Kennedy could accomplish what Johnson did in Congress. Nevertheless, many of Obama's supporters framed Hillary's comment as racist.

The King comment was more likely, as with her husband's coffee remark, an argument to elect the political veteran who can pass the bills. (After a year in office without a major legislative victory, was Hillary's argument so absurd?)

"Game Change," however, reported one other controversial Bill Clinton comment. After Kennedy sided with Obama, Clinton reportedly snapped, "the only reason you are endorsing him is because he's black."

Racist or overly racial? Was Obama's potential to be the first black president not a vital reason he inspired so many? Wasn't that inspiration precisely what drew Kennedy to Obama? Anyone who's looked seriously at the 2008 primary election knows that Obama's race was, on balance, more a benefit than a hindrance. We know from polling that Obama was the first movement candidate—like Gary Hart, Bill Bradley or Howard Dean before him—to unite white college graduates and blacks. Obama's oratorical gifts, judicious mind and steady character were instrumental to his success. But his race actually personified a central theme of his campaign — change and moving beyond a racist past.

Was Bill Clinton's comment also any worse than an Obama supporter arguing that Hillary won some key endorsements and plenty of votes simply because of her gender?

Recall Obama's gaffes. Obama said during the campaign, "You challenge the status quo and suddenly the claws come out." Some women heard a veiled attack on Hillary as catty. Obama said in one presidential debate, "you're likable enough Hillary." Then, like some blacks interpreted Bill Clinton's remarks in South Carolina, many women heard an "ism" — the tough woman portrayed as a bitch.

Obama was forgiven, as Obama forgave Biden. Biden said in 2007 that Obama was "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean."

Bill Clinton has indeed made some questionable remarks. But unlike Reid and Biden, did any of his language actually utilize racially fraught words?

Many Democrats excused Reid because he was from Searchlight, Nevada, and of the generation that used the word "negro." But this is the Democratic majority leader! Blacks are the most loyal bloc of the Democratic Party. How can Reid be so socially disconnected from blacks today as to use the word "negro?"

Still, as columnist Mary Mitchell pointed out in her defense of Reid, talking about race is not the same as racist talk. But the irony is that some of those who continue to attack Bill Clinton as a racist, while granting absolution to his peers for racially charged statements, should know better. That irony is compounded because Clinton's history with blacks is far deeper than Reid or Biden and his phrasing less offensive.

Certainly, black leaders opposed Clinton's support for welfare reform but they also championed his appointments of blacks, defense of affirmative action and initiation of a national conversation on race.

In the end, Bill likely overestimated his bond with black voters in 2008. He veered into racial subjects that most white politicians dare not. Clinton learned the hard way that he was not the "first black president." And therefore, on this subject, he lacked the rhetorical latitude of someone who is black.

But then, Morrison's point was that no president before Clinton had so visibly affirmed cultural blackness. Clinton's bond with blacks was, at its deepest, symbolic. Clinton was the first president-elect to attend an Inauguration Day prayer service in a black church, praying where figures like Frederick Douglass once preached. We knew this Clinton for eight years. Do a few arguably contentious statements truly merit forgetting him?