Yesterday, Sarah Palin came out swinging with the central thrust of the McCain camp's final 30-day assault on Barack Obama's ascendant candidacy:
"Turns out one of Barack’s earliest supporters is a man who, according to the New York Times, and they are hardly ever wrong, was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that quote launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and US Capitol. Wow. These are the same guys who think patriotism is paying higher taxes."
“This is not a man who sees America as you see it and how I see America. We see America as the greatest force for good in this world. If we can be that beacon of light and hope for others who seek freedom and democracy and can live in a country that would allow intolerance in the equal rights that again our military men and women fight for and die for for all of us. Our opponent though, is someone who sees America it seems as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country?”
The "terrorist" she describes Barack as "palling around with" is William Ayers, a man who Obama briefly worked with in the mid-1990's on the board of an educational improvement association, a man he is not nor ever has gone "palling around with", a man whose "domestic terrorist" credentials never included murdering anyone, since he was too incompetent to pull it off. He has since rehabilitated himself as a University of Illinois professor and educational expert, but all of that is beside the point: Barack Obama was 8 years old when the Weathermen launched their sickening campaign, and this is all old news that was hashed out during the Democratic primary.
It's hard not to notice that Gov. Palin never once mentioned the name of the "domestic terrorist". It is a certainty that omission was intentional. The aim is to just line up the word "terrorist" with "Obama", and let the low-information voter make the next step on their own to "Osama". If the McCain campaign can convince enough people that Obama has ever been friends with a Muslim terrorist, they've done their job.
Today, however, the Associated Press went one further, describing Palin's attack as "racially tinged".
Though she may have scored a political hit each time, her attack was unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret.
Palin's words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism. But is there another subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee "palling around" with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he doesn't see their America?
In a post-Sept. 11 America, terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims, not the homegrown anarchists of Ayers' day 40 years ago. With Obama a relative unknown when he began his campaign, the Internet hummed with false e-mails about ties to radical Islam of a foreign-born candidate.
Vicious? Yes. Insinuating? More than ever. Inaccurate? Entirely. Racist? Well, not necessarily.
Look, I have no idea what was going on in Sarah Palin's head when she labeled Barack Obama "un-American". But calling someone "un-American" isn't on it's face "racist", even if that person happens to be black, even if that person isn't "un-American" at all.
I do, however, know that once the political conversation turns to race in this election, it hurts Barack Obama. The last time race came up in a high-profile way this campaign was when Barack Obama made the following statement over the summer:
"Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me," Obama said. "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."
What followed? Two weeks of bad Obama press, where the media rushed to McCain's defense ("Sen. McCain is NOT a racist!"), the McCain camp beat Obama over the head with the reverse-racism canard, and the Illinois senator's poll numbers tanked. Since that happened, the Obama campaign has studiously avoided even the slightest mention of the color of his skin.
So why is the AP bringing it back up again 30 days out from Election Day? Here's an idea:
Ron Fournier is an American national political journalist employed by the Associated Press (AP). He currently serves as their Washington bureau chief.
In 2006, he took a position as editor-in-chief of a new Internet website called Hotsoup.com, which aimed to foster discussion on a number of topics including politics. The site failed to catch on, however, and Fournier returned to the AP in March 2007 as its Online Political Editor, after considering “a senior advisory role” with John McCain's presidential campaign.
In May 2008, Fournier was named the acting Washington bureau chief, replacing his "mentor" Sandy Johnson. Since taking over the position, Fournier has led a dramatic shift in the AP's policy, moving it away from the neutral and objective tone it had become known for and toward a more opinionated style that would make judgments when conflicting opinions were presented in a story.
On August 23, 2008, following U.S. Senator and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama's announcement of his selection of Senator Joe Biden as a running mate, Fournier wrote a widely circulated piece entitled "Analysis: Biden pick shows lack of confidence". A Washington Monthly columnist described the piece as "mirror[ing] the Republican line with minimal variation". Editor & Publisher noted that Fournier's article "gained wide linkage at the Drudge Report, Hot Air and numerous other conservative sites...."
I'm not the first one to note Fournier's McCain bias. And I can't help but wonder if it has anything to do with the race question suddenly rearing its head—ala Vladimir Putin—in response to a rather non-racial remark by Fournier's buddy Sarah Palin.
My hunch? This is a ploy to bait the Obama team into reacting, thus drumming up a "race" discussion yet again, turf far more favorable to John McCain than where the fight is currently being played out, on the economy. Let's hope the Obama team sees it for what it is, and doesn't take the bait.
