A couple of days ago in the Valley & State section of the Arizona Republic was a column by Washington Post writer Eugene Robinson. If you missed it, you can find it here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/31/AR2008073102820.html . Robinson accuses the McCain campaign of playing the "race card". A serious allegation considering Barack Obama is indeed half Kenyan.
The source of Robinson's consternation was Obama's comments at a recent campaign stop. Obama warned that those opposed to him would "...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 the dollar bills.' In response to these interesting, pre-emptive charges, McCain Campaign Manager Rick Davis accused Obama of playing the dum, dum, duuuuum, race card. Which of course the Illinois Senator did.
Robinson, employing a not so subtle intellectual/journalistic slight of hand, has deemed that Obama was merely reminding (as if people have to be) that he is the first black politician with a viable chance to be president. If this was the idea that Obama, a master practitioner of words, wanted to convey, it just didn't come out right. I suspect that Mr. Obama meant exactly what he said.
This whole episode, though, is emblematic of the Obama campaign's attitude towards criticism of it's candidate. Oppose Obama, then witness race mentioned as a possible motivation for such criticism at times by the Obama campaign.
In the end, Robinson would like us to believe that Rick Davis' accusation of calling out Obama's comment as "race card" material was wrong. Robinson feebly asserts that Obama was innocently pointing out a rather obvious truth. People are much smarter than Obama and Robinson would like to believe. The unfortunate, narrow-minded and grossly over simplistic attitude that inspired Obama's words cannot be simply explained away, especially with an attempt as inane as Robinson's. And by the way, John McCain doesn't look like any of those other guys on "the dollar bills" either. Any resemblance would be strictly skin deep.
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