I’m quite familiar with this WMD. I’ve heard this same nonsense before. This is what I heard three years ago when I began writing columns that accused McGwire of being a drug cheat:

“You love criticizing our white heroes.”

Now there’s a similar tone coming from the Bonds crowd:

“I can’t believe that as a black man you would say those things about Bonds. You’re an Uncle Tom.”

“If he were nice and white (like Giambi) no one would care.”

Are we so cockeyed by race in this country that they’d prefer to embrace lying, cheating frauds simply because they fit neatly into our own racial demographic?

I hope that’s not true. But I know that Bonds is reaping the same benefits McGwire received, even after McGwire’s embarrassing 2005 testimony before Congress.

But Bonds doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. He is not being persecuted. He lied, he cheated and he got caught. The war on discrimination in this country is too important to waste a single valuable moral bullet on this bogus fight. There are too many men and women in this country who are legitimately persecuted because of race, so I refuse to allow Bonds to benefit from all the real battles along the racial divide with his counterfeit one.

David Cornwell is a black man with a clue. Cornwell is one of the most significant attorneys in the sports world, having served as legal counsel to the National Football League, and now represents players, coaches and player agents in various legal matters. He’s a child of the1960s who remembers what the good fight was and won’t be fooled by this phony one.

“Remember how it used to be growing up in the black community?” said Cornwell. “Growing up, you didn’t have to just worry about your parents catching you if you were doing something wrong. It was all their friends and all the neighbors. If they caught you, sometimes it was handled right there and then. We don’t have that anymore and we need to get back to that. You don’t excuse bad behavior. You don’t look the other way at bad behavior just because they’re part of your community. You confront it and make them understand that will not be allowed in our community.

“Well we need to get back to that way of thinking again,” said Cornwell. “This goes from ‘Pacman’ Jones all the way to Barry Bonds. We can no longer excuse their bad behavior because they’re black. We can’t defend them by saying, ‘Well the white guy did it, too. What about him?’ That’s not how we were raised. That’s not how our parents and their generation handled their responsibilities of raising all the young men and women in the community.”

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Over the past few months, I have read some fascinating and high-minded essays about the Bonds mess, and some not-so-fascinating and downright ignorant emails over that same stretch of time. Far too often, they all want to cast Bonds in the role of the victim, while ignoring the simple truth that he is guilty of cheating. This is not a court of law. This is the court of common sense. He admitted to a grand jury that he “unknowingly” used designer steroids. He had achieved a ridiculous muscle mass increase at too late an age. His career home run explosion magically coincided with his association with BALCO.

But Bonds tells us he did nothing wrong, so who are we’re supposed to believe, him or our lyin’ eyes?

Hank Aaron was a victim of America’s dark soul in his 1974 pursuit of Babe Ruth’s home-run mark. The hatred and resentment that Bonds is feeling now are all about the self-inflicted wounds of a cheater’s out-of-control vanity and ego. And if there is racism involving the Bonds’ chase, then it cuts both ways. I certainly believe there is a hateful portion of whites who root against Bonds simply because he’s black. But my emails and various network television and newspaper polls tell me that a significant number of black folks have also decided to root for him for no other reason than the color of his skin, too.

Bonds’ bad behavior should not be praised in the black community. It should be looked at harshly and unfavorably. This is not an accomplishment that is worthy of praise, and I can’t believe all the people who want to sanction it.