What the frak is happening?
It's all over the place: Huffington Post, Politico, The Free Republic, Real Clear Politics . . . people are getting all "uppity" over Obama's statements about McCain trying to make people afraid of him, that "he has a funny name" and that "he doesn't look like those presidents on the dollar bills."
Even worse . . . the Huffington Post story - amongst others - actually seems to be placing part of the blame for all of the negative campaigning on Obama's shoulders. (I'm really peeved at Ariana Huffington for this, particularly after watching this speech.)
Has everyone gone mad?
First of all, after four straight increasingly negative attack ads from McCain, Obama absolutely has the right to respond and point out the facts: McCain hasn't really said anything positive about himself in those adds. Watchers are left to infer that he is the polar opposite of what he claims Obama is, and his positions are likewise polar opposite of what he claims Obama's are. They're attacking him. Like they attacked Kerry. Like they attacked Gore. Like the attacked Clinton (both of them).
We've all heard the narratives. Obama is "risky". Obama is an "empty suit". Obama has no experience with foreign policy (er, wait, no, he cares about foreign policy too much, not enough about America!). Obama is an arrogant liberal. All of these narratives - ALL of them - each in and of themselves, are designed to make people think "Obama is not like us; Obama doesn't have our interests at heart; Obama is part of the terroist agenda." (You might think I'm stretching on that last one, but I actually had someone say that to me.)
This is all over and above the third-rail race issue. Frankly, I'm flabbergasted that the Obama campaign actually has to defend what he said in Springfield. Do people really have that short a memory? After the Madrassa story, the photos of him in Kenyan garb, after the over-emphasizing of his middle name, after the terrorist fist jab, after Ben Smith's idiotic complaint that he only showed his white family in his background ads, after all these incidents (and many others I'm forgetting, I'm sure) . . . the media and blogosphere is surprised to find that race is an issue?
The MSM AND the blogosphere seem to be so intent on how good a news story this is that they're glossing over the fact that what Barack Obama said - that McCain and the Republicans are trying to make people afraid of the guy "with the funny name" and who "doesn't look like the other presidents on those dollar bills" - is absolutely, undoubtedly true. Hell, when he said it, everyone in that room was solemnly nodding their heads.
McCain himself, until the Britney/Hilton ad, hasn't officially mentioned race, yet, this is true. But why should any of their other methods to unjustifiably scare Americans out of voting for Obama be any less despicable?
Update: Andrew Ramano of Newsweek has re-affirmed my faith in journalists with this piece:
The second counterargument is that if McCain actually believed that Obama's Missouri remarks were "divisive, negative, shameful and wrong," he probably would've mentioned it back in June--when Obama said the same thing at a Florida fundraising event. "They’re going to try to make you afraid of me," Obama told donors. "‘He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?’" The Florida remarks, in fact, were more explicitly "racial" than anything Obama said yesterday in Missouri. But McCain didn't complain. Nor did he complain any of the dozens of other times Obama expressed similar sentiments.