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August 04, 2008

Comments

Brendan persists in his Jesuitical parsing of Obama's statement, seeking some way, any way, to blunt Obama's obvious smear. So much shining intellect in the defense of such tawdry mud-slinging. Meanwhile Obama goes into his defensive crouch and seeks to invoke his magic powers by shouting not "Shazam!" but "Cynicism!" It's a familiar theme for Obama (e.g., here and even here), and for good reason: if anybody knows about cynicism, it's Barack Obama.

Obama's campaign has acknowledged that Obama's dollar bills comment referred to race, at least in part. So, Obama was predicting that Bush and McCain would commit racist acts. Brendan seems to defending Obama based on the very subtle difference between being a racist and commiting racist acts.

Come to think of it, I wonder whether today's charge that McCain is "cynical" is a subtle way of predicting that his campaign will use racist attacks even though he's not a racist.

Just wondering, why have major newspapers and mainstream media so far totally ignored this very newsworthy story -- There is a June 27, 2008 web ad called "SEAL" published by "John McCain 2008" which has a $100 dollar bill with Obama's face replacing Ben Franklin's mug, and which likely spurred Obama to comment as he did on the campaign trail. In this ad, McCain's and his tech savvy little elves "replaced" several national treasures w/Obama's face (including the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, the $100 bill, etc.). Seems like McCain did, in fact, draw "first blood" here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDTJDv4hevU

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/1/135535/0825/653/560749

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/2/21424/68577/880/561515

-- I report, you decide.

I'm unsure whether rockyroll is implying that the seal ad is racist. I don't think it is. The photoshopped Obama faces are colored the same as the background: green on the bill, rock-colored on Mt. Rushmore. As a result, Obama looks like the other Presidents.

It's all too easy to fall into a mode seeing racial overtones in everything. It reminds me of an old joke: Psychiatrist draws two parallel lines horizontally on a sheet of paper and asks his patient to describe it. “Why, clearly, it is two people having sex.” Psychiatrist next draws two horizontal diagonals, intersecting. “Two dogs having sex, says the patient.” Psychiatrist draws two vertical diagonals, intersecting. “Two giraffes, having sex,” says the patient. “Why do you see sex in everything I draw?” ask the doctor. “Why do you keep drawing dirty pictures?” the patient responds.

Not buying your take on this one, Brendan. Barack EXPLICITLY uses a nearly identical argument in FL back in May or June, mocking what McCain's camp would say, "Oh, and did you notice, he's black!" Barack used such a similar argument in this latest kerfuffle that it would be intellectually dishonest to say it had nothing to do with Obama again mentioning race as a scare tactic. He and his campaign are bringing this issue up again and again, and it's not helping them at all. McCain and his camp haven't directly used race at all, and I really doubt that McCain has any racist intentions or feelings at all towards Obama. Bringing up race as often as Obama does is a sign of over-sensitivity on his and his supporters' parts- the few rednecks out there who are truly racists won't ever vote for Barack, but his constant implication that so many people are secretly racists is really poor politics, and I think it shows a great deal of insecurity on Obama's part.

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