The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.

Bottom Stories of the Day

  • “Chicago Not Interested in 2024 Olympic Bid”–headline, Chicago Tribune, Feb. 19
  • “Nigerians Criticise Kim Kardashian’s Visit”–headline, AllAfrica.com, Feb. 20

‘Now, What Did We Do With Those Kids . . .?’ 
“Abortion-Rights PAC Staffers Behind Push for Gun-Control ‘Million Kid March’ on DC”–headline, PJMedia.com, Feb. 19

Is This Racist?
NPR reports on a new federal cost-cutting move:

Every month, the government sends out about 5 million checks to Americans who receive federal benefits. On March 1, the Treasury Department is making those paper checks a thing of the past.

Since May 2011, all new Social Security recipients are required to get direct deposit of their benefits. Some 93 percent of all recipients now do.

But there are still holdouts, so the Treasury Department started a campaign and a website, Go Direct, in an effort to convince the remaining 7 percent.

The department is prodding people to switch for one big reason: cost. Treasury spokesman Walt Henderson says the government will save $1 billion over 10 years by not having to print paper checks.

This sounds eminently sensible, but is it also racist? Last August, NPR carried aninterview with Kristal Zook, a journalism professor who “recently penned a piece for the August issue of Essence Magazine called ‘Destroying Your Vote.’ ” Zook repeated the frequent claim that voter ID laws are racist:

There’s a concern, because it echoes the kinds of efforts at disenfranchisement that have taken place for so long in this country, from the poll tax to literacy tests, all the way up until 1965 when we had the first real reform, these measures were in place to keep people out of the voter box.

Later, hostess Michel Martin, addressing a question to voter ID proponent Abigail Thernstrom, observed: “The conversations around this issue often move in a racial direction. But the other group that people say these requirements burden most heavily are the elderly.”

You can’t have direct deposit without a bank account, and you can’t open a bank account without ID. So why isn’t the Treasury racist for trying to force the elderly to use direct deposit? The answer, of course, is that the objections to voter ID are bogus to begin with.

For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.