One click away from the front page of Foxnews.com, Fox Executive VP John Moody offers "commentary" on the accusation that a white female McCain campaign worker was attacked by a black male assailant. That commentary is a shockingly overt pre-emptive apology for racism.
After breathlessly recounting the woman's story, including the race of both parties, Moody emits the following:
If Ms. Todd’s allegations are proven accurate, some voters may revisit their support for Senator Obama, not because they are racists (with due respect to Rep. John Murtha), but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee.
Why exactly would people suddenly feel that they don't know about Obama if the incident were true? Moody purports to deny that using the incident to "re-evaluate" Obama is necessarily a product of racism, but his alternative explanation grossly fails to proceed from premise to conclusion. ("A black man attacked a white woman because of her McCain/Palin sticker, kind of makes me think ... how much do I really know about the Junior Senator from Illinois? Also, there was a shark attack off the coast of Florida -- can I really trust the Deputy Minister of Finance in the Czech Republic? Did I leave the gas on?") If people re-evaluate their support for Obama because of this, they are racists. It's that fucking simple, and anyone attempting to give them permission to do so is worse than a racist -- he is a person who uses racism for political gain. Moody has decided, knowing everything about what kinds of narratives catalyzed lynch mobs in the American South, to deploy the most explosive, reprehensible hatreds and fears that linger in the country. And then to give those hatreds a kiss out the door and a wish of good luck.