What's worse than a highly paid, high-profile state leader e-mailing dirty and racist jokes from his official state account?

All the people in similar high places defending his behavior.

HTA's Rex Johnson sure has a lot of friends, especially among local Democrats. He has a number of people gunning for him too, particularly among Hawai'i Republicans. So much of the fuss over whether to fire him for e-mailing offensive material from his state computer is a big tug of war between opposing parties. It's about him, but it's not just about him.

Really, it should be about the act in question. The heart of a person is difficult to judge and best left to spouses and clergy. A professional in his position should be judged by behavior. Racism is not a box you check on a form, yes or no. Racism is insidious because it has so many forms and degrees. When the nicest guy you know utters a hateful slur, it's not OK just because he's your friend. It's still wrong.

Johnson did not author the jokes, but he passed them along. That means he's unoriginal, but not less culpable. Like they teach middle school students about cyber-bullying and online trash: "Don't write it, don't forward it, just delete it."

Lots of people have questionable or offensive or embarrassing things in their office e-mails. No one would happily welcome a detailed exam of their e-mail accounts. But just because lots of people forward garbage like this from work doesn't make it any less wrong. On the contrary, it makes it all the more awful, particularly when you have state officials saying, "What's the big deal?"

The big deal is that words can be the sword that cuts, the weight that crushes, the door that slams when they are used to assault the dignity of a group of people. The big deal is a leader in a quasi-public office should be held to the highest standards and should in no way be perpetrating or rationalizing racism. The big deal is that tourism is built on the bedrock of "aloha" and there is no aloha in words used to tear down race or gender.

It should not slip anyone's attention that the HTA board met and made a decision on Rex Johnson's continued employment without looking at the actual content of the e-mails in question. They judged the case without seeing the evidence. How much confidence does that inspire in their decision-making process? A kid called into the principal's office for note-passing gets more due process.

Politics and personality aside, the content of those e-mails from a person holding that position are indefensible.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.