The Wall Street Journal goes after Barack Obama’s gaffe on Justice Clarence Thomas at the Rick Warren forum. The editors write:

Barack Obama likes to portray himself as a centrist politician who wants to unite the country, but occasionally his postpartisan mask slips. That was the case at Saturday night’s Saddleback Church forum, when Mr. Obama chose to demean Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Pastor Rick Warren asked each Presidential candidate which Justices he would not have nominated. Mr. McCain said, “with all due respect” the four most liberal sitting Justices because of his different judicial philosophy.

Mr. Obama took a lower road, replying first that “that’s a good one,” and then adding that “I would not have nominated Clarence Thomas. I don’t think that he, I don’t think that he was a strong enough jurist or legal thinker at the time for that elevation. Setting aside the fact that I profoundly disagree with his interpretation of a lot of the Constitution.” The Democrat added that he also wouldn’t have appointed Antonin Scalia, and perhaps not John Roberts, though he assured the audience that at least they were smart enough for the job.

But, as I and others noted, the gaffe tells us more about Obama’s character and level of civility than Thomas’s credentials:

Even more troubling is what the Illinois Democrat’s answer betrays about his political habits of mind. Asked a question he didn’t expect at a rare unscripted event, the rookie candidate didn’t merely say he disagreed with Justice Thomas. Instead, he instinctively reverted to the leftwing cliché that the Court’s black conservative isn’t up to the job while his white conservative colleagues are.

So much for civility in politics and bringing people together. And no wonder Mr. Obama’s advisers have refused invitations for more such open forums, preferring to keep him in front of a teleprompter, where he won’t let slip what he really believes.

Obama has never had a viable political opponent who held ideological views vastly different from his own. He doesn’t have a track record of engaging and sparring with intellectual opponents. And he doesn’t get much tough questioning from the media. (When he does, as when Charlie Gibson pointed out that raising capital gains rates actually lowers revenue, he is utterly nonplussed.) So it isn’t surprising that he gets personal in confronting intellectual opposition under pressure. But it sure is revealing.