Obama's dollar bill comment triply distorted

Has anyone else noticed that Barack Obama's comment that George W. Bush and John McCain are going to remind voters that he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills" is being distorted in multiple ways? It's a reminder of how disturbed the national debate on race can be.

Here's what Obama said:

Obama began his day Wednesday in Springfield, Mo., charging: "Nobody really thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face, so what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He's risky."

In Rolla and then in Union, Obama issued similar lines. "They're going to try to say, 'Well, you know, he's got a funny name, and he doesn't look like all the presidents on the dollar bills and the five-dollar bills,' and they're going to send out nasty e-mails," he told an audience in Union.

First, as commenter Seth, Mark Thoma, and others point out, McCain did superimpose Obama's face onto a $100 bill in a previous campaign ad -- a fact that has been omitted from most coverage of the controversy:

Second, the tense of Obama's comment has been distorted by reporters and the McCain campaign, who are asking Obama to back up a claim he did not make. Here's what Dan Balz wrote on the Washington Post website:

Four things are already clear from the controversy. First, Obama campaign officials, lacking any example of McCain ever pointing directly or indirectly at Obama's race as an issue in the campaign, have backpedaled rapidly away from any suggestion that their Republican opponent is using the very tactics Obama suggested on Wednesday.

Campaign manager David Plouffe was pressed hard during a conference call on Thursday for examples and could not point to any. An inquiry to the Obama campaign later in the day produced no immediate response and later no answer to a direct question asking for evidence to buttress Obama's suggestion that McCain would try to scare people into not voting for Obama because he's black.

In fact, however, Obama's statement was a prediction, not a description of events to date. To review, he said "what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me... You know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills." Obama did not say that McCain and Bush have appealed to racial stereotypes and prejudice thus far (though they have in various ways, including highlighting Obama playing basketball in an ad, suggesting that only McCain puts "country first", and accusing him of "intellectual laziness"). Predicting future misbehavior is a cheap way to attack an opponent, but it doesn't excuse distorting what Obama said.

Third, as I noted on Friday, Obama's statement that Republicans would make race salient has been distorted by the McCain campaign into the (false) claim that he accused John McCain of being a racist -- a frequently used tactic designed to delegitimize criticism of the political exploitation of race. McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said on "Today" that "We are not going to let anybody paint John McCain, who has fought his entire life for equal rights for everyone, to be able to be painted as racist." Similarly, McCain official Steve Schmidt said "we will not allow John McCain to be smeared by Senator Obama as a racist for offering legitimate criticism." And yesterday, Senator Joe Lieberman even invoked McCain's adopted daughter from Bangladesh to justify his claim that McCain "does not have a bigoted bone in his body."

As a result of these attacks, Obama consultant David Axelrod was forced to deny another claim that Obama did not make, saying "Barack Obama never called John McCain a racist." Obama later added that "In no way do I think that John McCain’s campaign was being racist; I think they’re cynical."

The reality is that non-racist politicians can and do exploit the issue of race. McCain's personal beliefs prove nothing about the political strategy of his campaign. Shouldn't reporters understand this?

Comments

[Rob]

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.

[David]

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.

[rockynroll]

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.

[David]

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.

[Kevin]

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.