Joseph Ashby argues that something fishy is being ignored in the matter of Rush Limbaugh’s failed bid to buy the Rams.

NFL Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith served as counsel to Attorney General Eric Holder and was a member of Barack Obama’s transition team.

[...]

Despite the fact that Smith’s opposition was based on Limbaugh’s political commentary, the report failed to mention that Smith’s political connections (including those to whom he donated thousands of dollars) have a vested interest in Limbaugh’s discrediting.

[...]

Smith’s gross conflict of interest and apparent political targeting of Obama’s top foe is a huge story. Unfortunately the media appears too blinded by their prejudice of Limbaugh to report on it.

To summarize, we know that a former Obama official and political ally–who was chosen by the NFLPA specifically for his political clout and connections to the highest rungs of power in government–directly attacked Limbaugh for the radio-talker’s political commentary.

Historically politicians have been prone to vindictive and petty behavior, but never in American history has someone had so much power to pummel his political opponents as President Obama. With control over banks, insurance companies, car companies, media (sports media included) and unions (like the NFL players union), Obama tentacles seem to penetrate into nearly every corner of the nation.

Glenn Reynolds, from whom I got the link, doesn’t directly comment but does pass on this from a reader email: “BTW this is a big, big deal, and something Nixon ( or maybe Gene Talmadge or George Wallace in his heyday.) would have done. The difference is the press wouldn’t have played along then. Not because it was wrong. The press could care less about that ( Go look up Walter Duranty), but because Nixon wasn’t a Democrat. It’s all about power with the press…their power. You get in between them and it, heaven help you.”

Now, unlike Glenn, I am not a lawyer (or, as they say on the Internets, “IANAL”).  But I fail to see a problem here.

For the sake of argument, let’s concoct an outlandish conspiracy totally unsupported by facts:

Attorney General Holder personally called Smith and says:  “Hey, Rush Limbaugh has placed a bid to become a minority owner of the Rams.  He’s been a real thorn in our sides.  Do whatever you can to screw him over and paint him as a racist.  I’ll send over some fake quotes that I saw on Wikipedia which will help!’

Smith:  “Yes, sir, boss!   I’ll also call up Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.  They’ll help for free, since Limbaugh makes fun of them all the time.”

At this point, the story unfolds as we’ve seen it.

(Again, this is a completely made-up scenario.  It strikes me as far more plausible that Smith and Holder — both African American liberal Democrats — came to dislike Limbaugh independently and needed no coordination whatsoever. Ockham’s Razor and all that.)

Would any laws have been broken?  Would Smith or Holder be in violation of any professional codes?  Would Smith be in any violation of his fidiciary duties as NFLPA head? None that I can see.  Limbaugh’s a controversial figure believed by a not inconsiderable number of people to be racist.   It’s quite likely, then, that some number of NFLPA members were antsy about Limbaugh as an owner.

Further, Smith is an attorney.  Like many in his profession, he’s had numerous clients.  Does having had a client in the past that might have some tangential interest in a matter being worked on for a current client usually require some sort of formal disclosure?   I’m unaware of such a requirement but, again, IANAL.

The “trend toward dynasty politics” is getting out of hand, Charles Mahtesian argues in Politico.

[Obama's] secretary of state will be Hillary Clinton, the wife of the former president. The Senate seat she’ll vacate is being pursued by Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of a president and the niece of two senators. Joe Biden’s Senate seat may go to his son Beau. Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar, Obama’s pick for interior secretary, could end up being replaced by his brother, Rep. John Salazar.

And Obama’s own seat could go to the son of the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. – less likely now in light of developments in the Rod Blagojevich scandal – or to the daughter of Illinois’ current House speaker.

The U.S. Senate could end up looking like an American version of the House of Lords – and Republicans have begun to take notice.

Jesse Taylor takes an odd path on this one, snarking, “The solution, obviously, is to appoint orphans to everything” and clarifying that “To be clear, the issue isn’t that nepotism and dynastic tendencies are actually good things.  It’s that any administration is going to choose people who have family members, many of whom will have political aspirations.”

Now, while I agree with Steve Benen that Mahtesian’s piece is a bit over-the-top, not least of which because it “relies on the mere possibility of Kennedy, Salazar, and Jackson appointments to bolster its argument, not to mention the notion that Beau Biden may or may not run in 2010.”   Still, it’s not unreasonable to wonder about the propriety of appointing family members to posts when there are usually more qualified people available.

And even Mathesian admits that this is hardly a new phenomenon:

There is a rich bipartisan history of dynasty in American politics that dates all the way back to the Founding Fathers; Obama-Biden actually represents the first winning ticket since 1976 without a son or a grandson of a U.S. senator on it.

In 2008, the storied Udall clan, sometimes referred to as the Western Kennedys, saw two members elected to the Senate— Mark from Colorado and Tom from New Mexico. In 2010, they could be joined in the Senate by Florida’s Jeb Bush, the son and brother of presidents and the grandson of a senator.

All told, it’s entirely possible that the Senate will be comprised of nearly a dozen congressional offspring by the end of Obama’s first term as president.

We should, however, separate two phenomena:  politicians with famous names getting elected partly on the basis of the advantages so conferred and relatives of politicians being appointed to vacant offices.   The latter strikes me as infinitely more troubling than the former.

In the first instance, it’s simply a fact that sons, daughters, and even wives of politicians have an unusual interest in politics and often develop political ambitions.  They shouldn’t be precluded from seeking political office any more than the sons of generals and admirals should be dissauded from following in their fathers’ footsteps.

It’s unfortunately true that they have unfair advantages.  Hillary Clinton would have had zero chance of getting elected to the Senate in 2000 — let alone been a plausible candidate for the presidency and now secretary of state — had she not been First Lady for eight years.  She simply lacked the resume typically needed to aspire to those jobs or the charisma that Obama used to compensate for his lack of same.   Even Clinton, though, didn’t win simply because she was “Mrs. Bill Clinton.”   Rather, being First Lady gave her extraordinary name recognition, a huge Rolodex and campaign infrastructure, and she’d demonstrated her talents in a giant international spotlight.

Certainly, George W. Bush and Jeb Bush benefited from being the sons of the first President Bush.   It’s possible that either of them would have been elected to governorships, anyway, owing to being independently wealthy and having built networks in their home states.  But, certainly, they benefitted from the Bush name and access.

Far more troubling are the <strike>Mary Bonos,</strike>* Lisa Murkowskis, Jean Carnahans, and (potentially) Caroline Kennedys.  These people catapulted over dozens (if not tens or hundreds of thousands) of more qualified people to get appointed to high office.  Their sole qualification for the job, really, was being related to politicians.

There’s not much that can be done about the first phenomenon, either. If the public wants to elect people with familiar names, it’s hard to come up with a compelling reason to preclude them from doing so. It would, however, be easy to preclude governors from appointing relatives of current or recent officeholders to key posts; better yet, we could take away the appointment power altogether for elective offices, requiring special elections be held.

____________
*Commenter RW Rogers correctly points out that House members are never appointed.  Bono won a special election for her late husband’s seat.  She was a 36-year-old neophyte when she took the seat but has, presumably, done an able job given that she has subsequently been reelected five times.

Jesse Jackson Jr. is the infamous “Senate Candidate No. 5,” ABC’s Brian Ross reports.

Chicago Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., is the anonymous “Senate Candidate No. 5″ whose emissaries Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich reportedly offered up to $1 million to name him to the U.S. Senate, federal law enforcement sources tell ABC News.

According to the FBI affidavit in the case, Blagojevich “stated he might be able to cut a deal with Senate Candidate 5 that provided Rod Blagojevich” with something “tangible up front.”

The phrase  “whose emissaries Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich reportedly offered up to $1 million to name him to the U.S. Senate” is amazingly awkward.  One has to read it several times to verify that Jackson isn’t being accused of doing anything wrong.

Of course, one wonders what his “emissaries” did with said offer.

Jesse Jackson’s statement that Barack Obama’s “talking down to black people” makes him so angry that he “wants to cut his nuts out” has caused quite the stir.

Charles Hurt of the NY Post has the most concise report:

In a vulgar tirade caught on tape by Fox News, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said he wanted to “cut his [Barack Obama's] nuts out” and he accused the fellow Chicagoan of “talking down to black folks” by giving moral lectures to African-Americans, source said Jackson’s shocking quotes were picked up by a hot mic before an interview on health care in Fox’s Chicago studio last Sunday. Fox planned to air the recording on Bill O’Reilly’s “The Factor” show.

Jackson has apologized for the remarks and the resulting hubbub, CNN reports.

Speaking to CNN Wednesday, Jackson said he feels “very distressed” over the comments.
“This is a sound bite in a broader conversation about urban policy and racial disparities. I feel very distressed because I’m supportive of this campaign and with the senator, what he has done and is doing,” he said. “I said he comes down as speaking down to black people. The moral message must be a much broader message. What we need really is racial justice and urban policy and jobs and health care. That’s a range of issues on the menu.

“Then I said something I regret was crude. It was very private. And very much a sound bite,” he also said.

In a statement issued earlier Wednesday to CNN, Jackson said, “For any harm or hurt that this hot mic private conversation may have caused, I apologize. My support for Senator Obama’s campaign is wide, deep and unequivocal. I cherish this redemptive and historical moment.”

My reaction was along the lines of Andrew Sullivan’s: This is “the kind of electoral gift any politician dreams of. Obama gets his Sistah Souljah moment handed to him on a plate … by Bill O’Reilly.” Indeed, getting castigated by Jesse Jackson furthers the whole mainstream, articulate, bright and clean vibe.

I do wonder, however, what so peeved Jackson. In what way was Obama “talking down to blacks”? Simply because he channeled Bill Cosby in a speech and forgot to add the usual caveats about how everything is ultimately society’s fault?

I’m also a bit curious about Fox News’ editorial judgment. The event happened Sunday but they held off the tape until Wednesday? I could understand saving it for their Monday prime time lineup. But three days?

Meanwhile, Kate McMillan and her commenters amuse themselves with various plays on the “nuts” theme.

Ralph Nader says that Barack Obama “talks white” and ignores “black issues.”

“There’s only one thing different about Barack Obama when it comes to being a Democratic presidential candidate. He’s half African-American,” Nader said. “Whether that will make any difference, I don’t know. I haven’t heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos. Payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, lead. What’s keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white? He doesn’t want to appear like Jesse Jackson? We’ll see all that play out in the next few months and if he gets elected afterwards.”

The Obama campaign had only a brief response, calling the remarks disappointing.

Asked to clarify whether he thought Obama does try to “talk white,” Nader said: “Of course. I mean, first of all, the number one thing that a black American politician aspiring to the presidency should be is to candidly describe the plight of the poor, especially in the inner cities and the rural areas, and have a very detailed platform about how the poor is going to be defended by the law, is going to be protected by the law, and is going to be liberated by the law,” Nader said. “Haven’t heard a thing.”

I’m reminded of Charley Pride’s recounting of how often he was asked in the early days, “Why you don’t sound like you’re supposed to sound?” Of course, that was in the 1960s.

It’s not at all clear why black candidates have a particular obligation to talk about “black issues.” Indeed, as a major party nominee, it’s his job to forge a broad consensus on issues that appeal to Americans as a whole. Running as “the black candidate” and focusing mostly on the issues Nader wants him to would ensure he’d lose. Certainly, those issues haven’tNader much good.

Elsewhere, Ed Morrissey notes the irony of Nader trying to tell a black man how to talk black and that the focus on Obama’s race continues to come from those on the Left and Eric Kleefeld reminds us that this is, after all, Ralph Nader we’re talking about.

Barack Obama gave his big race speech today. I haven’t heard it, just read the transcripts of the pre-release text and the as-delivered version.

My colleague Dave Schuler observes, “I’ll wait for the overnight polls. Otherwise my remarks would just be a Rorschach test which is what the commentaries I’ve heard so far have been.” I’ll take that risk. Indeed, that we filter our analysis through our personal experience is not only the nature of blogging but a central thesis of Obama’s speech.

I’ll add the additional caveat that analyzing a speech from its text is problematic in two ways. First, it divorces it from the style of delivery; that disadvantages Obama and advantages George W. Bush. On the other hand, it does get to the substance. Second, most people will neither hear the speech nor read it; rather, they will hear and/or see a handful of sound bytes. My impressions will therefore be quite different than those that inform the overnight polls on which Dave waits.

Be that as it may, the speech accomplished what it presumably set out to do. It re-emphasized Obama’s answer to the “Why are you running for president?” question, namely that his background and skills are uniquely suited to healing what’s wrong with the country. And it took on the Wright question in that light.

I chose to run for president at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together, unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction: toward a better future for our children and our grandchildren.

And this belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own story. I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas.

I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and I’ve lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slave owners, an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters.

I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins of every race and every hue scattered across three continents. And for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on earth is my story even possible.

It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional of candidates. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts — that out of many, we are truly one.

Now, frankly, I find this narrative ridiculously oversold. Lots of black men have traveled and gotten a great education and his ties with America’s history of racial tension are mostly vicarious. Certainly, Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell have better stories to tell in that regard. Regardless, people are buying into this message and re-establishing it as the backdrop for what is to come is smart.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy, and in some cases, pain.

For some, nagging questions remain: Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in the church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely, just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests or rabbis with which you strongly disagree.

A nice sleight-of-hand, if an incredibly dubious one. How many people who need to be convinced actually sit in congregations where clergy spout things as outrageous as Wright’s bile?

After a few paragraphs talking about how Wright’s words were “divisive” and distracted us from the challenges of terrorism, climate change, and so forth– a rather nonsensical criticism of a local preacher, frankly — he gets to the meat of it:

Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television sets and YouTube, if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor.

He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine, and who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who over 30 years has led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth — by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

This gets to the truth via a lie. Does anyone really believe that the three or four sermons that have been aired repeatedly are the entirety of Wright’s misconduct? That he’s normally sweetness and light but, for some inexplicable reason, channeled Louis Farrahkan one a few occasions? That’s just insulting, frankly.

But I’m inclined to believe — indeed, was so inclined before reading Obama’s response — that the rest of this is right. Wright helped Obama through some hard times, inspired him to do good, and it was therefore easy to overlook his bad conduct.

This, too, is completely understandable:

The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and, yes, the bitterness and biases that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding and baptized my children.

It’s immediately followed, though, with what I believe to be another misdirection:

Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect.

But, surely, he’s heard anti-white and anti-Jewish rhetoric coming from Wright’s pulpit.

He contains within him the contradictions — the good and the bad — of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can disown my white grandmother, a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed her by on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are part of America, this country that I love.

This is quite powerful and believable. Race is a complicated part of the human equation and decent people have visceral, instinctive reactions to it that coexists — and often competes with — our intellectual understandings.

The speech should have ended there, frankly. That’s a stirring note and a stark contrast with Wright’s infamous “God Damn America” refrain.

Instead, we get many, many paragraphs on Jim Crow and other aspects of America’s history. We already knew that, though; it’s the foreshadowing of this controversy. Hitting us over the head with it detracts from Obama’s appeal. Shelby Steele:

Bargaining is a mask that blacks can wear in the American mainstream, one that enables them to put whites at their ease. This mask diffuses the anxiety that goes along with being white in a multiracial society. Bargainers make the subliminal promise to whites not to shame them with America’s history of racism, on the condition that they will not hold the bargainer’s race against him. And whites love this bargain — and feel affection for the bargainer — because it gives them racial innocence in a society where whites live under constant threat of being stigmatized as racist. So the bargainer presents himself as an opportunity for whites to experience racial innocence.

[...]

Race helps Mr. Obama in another way — it lifts his political campaign to the level of allegory, making it the stuff of a far higher drama than budget deficits and education reform. His dark skin, with its powerful evocations of America’s tortured racial past, frames the political contest as a morality play. Will his victory mean America’s redemption from its racist past? Will his defeat show an America morally unevolved? Is his campaign a story of black overcoming, an echo of the civil rights movement? Or is it a passing-of-the-torch story, of one generation displacing another?

Because he is black, there is a sense that profound questions stand to be resolved in the unfolding of his political destiny. And, as the Clintons have discovered, it is hard in the real world to run against a candidate of destiny. For many Americans — black and white — Barack Obama is simply too good (and too rare) an opportunity to pass up. For whites, here is the opportunity to document their deliverance from the shames of their forbearers. And for blacks, here is the chance to document the end of inferiority. So the Clintons have found themselves running more against America’s very highest possibilities than against a man. And the press, normally happy to dispel every political pretension, has all but quivered before Mr. Obama. They, too, have feared being on the wrong side of destiny.

Few will hear or read the whole speech and my guess is that the sound bytes won’t come from its dull ending. But Obama should have finished on the uplifting applause line just the same.

Both Bruce McQuain and Publius note the parallels with Mitt Romney’s “Mormon speech.” While that immediately struck me as a brilliant analogy, upon reflection I think it’s not. People had legitimate doubts about Mormonism and Romney’s adherence to its more unorthodox views. Ditto John Kennedy’s “Catholic speech” decades earlier and fealty to the Holy See.

Few seriously thought Obama shared Wright’s crazier views. Rather, there’s a concern that Obama’s carefully crafted transracial, transpartisan appeal is a mask for something more radical. Shelby Steele again:

[N]othing could be more dangerous to Mr. Obama’s political aspirations than the revelation that he, the son of a white woman, sat Sunday after Sunday — for 20 years — in an Afrocentric, black nationalist church in which his own mother, not to mention other whites, could never feel comfortable. His pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is a challenger who goes far past Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson in his anti-American outrage (”God damn America”).

Whether this speech will dissuade these fears is beyond my ability to forecast, as I was in the minority that wasn’t all that troubled by the Wright association in the first place. That much, we’ll need to wait for the overnight polls to find out.

Photo credit: Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times

UPDATE: The gang at NRO’s The Corner have ginned up more than a dozen posts on this topic already but two of them encapsulate the likely reactions of people not already predisposed to love Obama and capture nicely the dichotomy I was trying to get at above.

Charles Murray* (yes, that, Charles Murray) gushes,

Has any other major American politician ever made a speech on race that comes even close to this one? As far as I’m concerned, it is just plain flat out brilliant—rhetorically, but also in capturing a lot of nuance about race in America. It is so far above the standard we’re used to from our pols….

Stanley Kurtz, though, sees something more troubling:

Wright could not have taken up so huge a space in Obama’s life unless Obama had let Wright in. And Obama let Wright in because of Wright’s sermons, not in spite of them. Obama may not have agreed with Wright’s solutions, or even with his final judgements, but something about Wright’s anger had to have attracted Obama–had to have seemed tantalizingly “authentic.” From the beginning, Obama had to have been sufficiently attracted to Wright’s excesses to forgive them. Then he sought to draw closer. In this positive attraction to anti-American anger (even if that anger is not quite entirely shared) Obama embodies the sensibilities of the elite academic radicals that are his real heritage and milieu.

*Hat tip to commenter Hal.

Andrew Sullivan argues that America’s reaction to Barack Obama’s speech on race relations later today will tell us a lot about ourselves.

Today will be a crucial day. It will be a day when we will discover if America’s racial environment – and the emotions and feelings and anger and fears that it entails – can allow for a black man – with all that entails – to become president.

This is followed by a moving essay on the difficulties faced by minorities — specifically blacks and gays — in reconciling multiple cultural identities. As a straight, white guy, I’m sympathetic to the struggle even though I can’t truly understand it.

My position on the Jeremiah Wright controversy has been rather similar to Andrew’s. I’m willing to grant enormous latitude to how an older black man expresses himself on race relations, especially in the context of trying to inspire his community to better themselves. If a man with the natural gifts and relative privilege of Obama finds the man inspiring, one imagines that those with less cause for hope would, too.

At the same time, I reject the implicit suggestion that tolerance for the struggles of others requires ignoring our own interests at the ballot box. If Wright had, like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, presented himself as a candidate for national office, my acceptance of his excesses would have vanished because of the radically changed context.

Because I believe Obama believes what he says about getting past our racial differences, I’ve concluded that he’s taken the good parts of Wright’s message and rejected the bad as the rantings of a “crazy old uncle.” But, surely, others are free to draw their own conclusions? We are, after all, talking about a man seeking the most powerful elective office on the planet.

Andrew’s post talks about his own struggles with how to deal with the “roughest edges of a gay subculture” and his desire to tolerate it while living outside it. It’s a personal choice and I can accept and even sympathize with it. At the same time, I’d predict that the first openly gay man to win national elective office won’t do it whilst campaigning in spikes and leather.

Joe Biden got into some hot water for gushing that Obama was “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” But that has in fact been a large part of Obama’s appeal. That he considers Wright a mentor is threatening to tarnish that image. That may be unfair. But democracy means that the people get to make that gut-level decision for themselves.

That Obama is facing this from the position of front runner, having won dozens of mostly white states against a white woman with all the conceivable institutional advantages, demonstrates how radically far we’ve come on the race relations front. If he ultimately fails because the public holds him to the same standards they would a white candidate, that’s progress, too.

Geraldine Ferraro has generated an amazing amount of controversy with her remarks that, “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position.” And, no, it wasn’t for her improper use of the subjunctive but rather because it’s “racist.”

I’d ignored the controversy until now because, well, it’s Geraldine Ferraro. (About whom, incidentally, it could reasonably have been said, when Walter Mondale chose her as his running mate twenty-four years ago, “If she were a man, she would not be in this position.”) I haven’t paid much attention to her since her ticket lost 49 states.

Andrew Sullivan, however, drew an analogy that sparked my interest: Rush Limbaugh’s comments five years ago about Donovan McNabb.

I think what we’ve had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well,” Limbaugh said. “There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn’t deserve. The defense carried this team.”

Limbaugh was widely excoriated including, as Sullivan points out, by Wes Clark and several other Democrats running for president at the time. Sullivan asks, reasonably enough, why “Rush Limbaugh [is] now held to a higher standard than Geraldine Ferraro?” I agree that the comments are quite similar. And I’d argue that neither are “racist” in any meaningful sense.

Limbaugh was wrong, I think, about McNabb. He was, by any measure, among the top quarterbacks in the league and was hampered by a sub-par receiving corps. Further, by 2003, there had been so many excellent black QBs (along with plenty of mediocre ones) that the need for a poster boy was gone. It was, however, a discussion that could have been had.

Ferraro, by contrast, was almost certainly right in her initial comments. (I agree with Steve Benen, though, that her subsequent defense has been “completely over the edge.”) John Cole snarks,

It appears that the legacy of slavery and years of segregation, Jim Crow laws, poll taxes, anti-miscegenation laws, have all worked to propel black men to the Presidency. That is why we have had so many black Presidents. Basically, we have made it too easy for a black man to become President, because they can just glide to the Presidency. Something needs to be done to help the whte man out, since it has been so long since we have had a white President.

But that’s a straw man, if an amusing one. Ferraro’s essentially saying what Joe Biden did with his infamous “first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean” comment. Huge numbers of white Americans very much want to get beyond race and be able to root for a politician of color. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and others who have presented themselves, though, were threatening. Obama is precisely the opposite; indeed, he’s the most soothing man with a real shot at the presidency that I can remember.

Of course Obama is benefiting from being black (or, more accurately, biracial). Can anyone imagine an unknown white state legislator making his first run for national office being asked to be the keynote speaker for a national political convention? Or being in the lead for his party’s presidential nomination after only three years in the Senate? Really?

That’s not to diminish Obama’s talents. He’s a captivating orator who’s running circles around a candidate who had all the advantages in the world. But much of his appeal is also his back story, which is inseparable from his skin color. Alex Massie has a long, thoughtful post on the matter. This excerpt, though, is particularly salient:

Obama’s candidacy also destroyed much of Clinton’s attractiveness. Yes, selecting a woman would be a historic moment. But selecting a black politician would be even more significant. The idea of a symbolic reconciliation or of some imagined historical make-up call acknowledging America’s original sin even as it sought to move, at long last, beyond it etc etc… all that makes choosing a woman pretty small beer.

[...]

[H]e had certain advantages that would have been denied a white, first-term Senator. No-one can feel good about themselves for supporting a wealthy white man, but backing the man who might be the first black President allows folk to praise themselves for their own broad-minded generosity and sense of historical significance.

The mere fact that any allusion to race — or, to some extent, any criticism at all — can and has been painted as “racist” also redounds to Obama’s advantage. Again, this is Geraldine Ferraro we’re talking about here. Do any of her critics really think she’s a racist? Or is this just political opportunism?

Bruce McQuain hopes,

Maybe, finally, we can begin to put all this PC nonsense to bed, recognize that not every reference to race or gender involves racism or sexism. Maybe we can actually have debates and discussions about the reality of statements and opinions vs. marginalizing and muting those who may say something we disagree by using false charges.

Somehow, I doubt it.

The Democratic National Committee is trying to work out a means for Florida and Michigan to stage delegate selection contests within the rules but there has thus far been no plan that’s acceptable to the states and both campaigns. Meanwhile, some supporters of Hillary Clinton are arguing that the DNC should simply seat the delegates from the previous round of “voting,” despite no alternative candidates on the ballot in Michigan and a pledge by the candidates not to campaign in Florida.

Jeralyn Merritt contends that it’s not Clinton’s fault that Barack Obama and the other candidates took their names off the ballot in Michigan, since it wasn’t technically required by their pledge, and that said pledge never specifically said the delegates wouldn’t count.

The exclusion of Michigan and Florida was a penalty imposed by the DNC. In my view, it was an unfair one and should be lifted. The votes should count as is, the delegates should be awarded and seated.

Big Tent Democrat favors a re-vote of some sort. Hillary appears not to be opposed if that is the will of the party. The party appears to be leaning towards a mail-in revote. When will Obama get on board?

Publius, rightly in my view, says this is “simply legalistic parsing” that ignores the spirit and context of the agreement. He’s willing to accept any outcome and support the winner “so long as the ending is legitimate – i.e., is consistent with ex ante rules.”

For instance, let’s say that Obama holds a majority in elected delegates (and popular vote), but Clinton pulls it out with superdelegates. I won’t like that, but that’s a perfectly legitimate result. The ex ante rules (however silly they may be) incorporate superdelegates, so I’m not going to march off sullenly if Clinton wins through rules that everyone agreed to going in. In fact, I’m going to go out and work for her.

At the same time, however, I would not accept a Clinton victory that depended on seating the Michigan and Florida delegates (assuming no re-vote, etc.). That’s breaking the rules, pure and simple, and the Clinton campaign should understand in no uncertain terms that the “nuclear strategy” will drive away supporters for the fall and leave lasting damage.

Meanwhile, Al Sharpton is jumping into the fray, providing further evidence that George Will’s famous quip that “Nowadays no diplomatic farce is complete without a cameo appearance by Jesse Jackson” is desperately in need of an Al Sharpton corollary.

Laying the groundwork for a court battle that could divide the Democratic Party, the Reverend Al Sharpton is threatening to sue the Democratic National Committee if it counts Florida’s primary results in the official presidential delegates tally.

Rev. Sharpton is traveling to Florida today to compile lists of residents who skipped the January contest because they thought their votes would not count. He plans to have those residents sign affidavits saying they would be disenfranchised by the seating of the Florida delegation, in the event the Democratic Party allowed that to happen.

Just as a stopped clock is right twice a day, Sharpton would seem here to have a solid argument. Whether he has standing to sue is another question, of course, but it’s hard to argue that the dynamics of the race would not have been radically different had Obama been campaigning and the potential participants under the impression that showing up to vote actually mattered.

Fortunately for Clinton, two of her more prominent backers are making an offer that’s going to be hard for the other parties to refuse: A revote paid for with someone else’s dime.

Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey and Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania said Sunday that they would be willing to raise half the $30 million it would take to run new contests in those two states. Mr. Corzine and Mr. Rendell submitted their proposal to The Washington Post.

The two governors argue that the Democratic National Committee, and not taxpayers in Florida and Michigan, should pay for a re-election in those states.

Democrats have been struggling to find a way to seat the delegates from Michigan and Florida, who were excluded when those states held primaries in January, violating national party rules.

If someone comes up with a way to raise the other $15 million — and, frankly, it’s not clear to me that the Clinton and Obama camps couldn’t simply pitch in the money themselves — this could have some legs. Howard Dean has, rightly, said that the DNC is not going to pay to run these elections; after all, the states violated the rules with full knowledge that they were doing so. But the taxpayers of those states aren’t going to be willing to pay more money to stage Democratic Party elections, either. Outside financing would seem to be the only solution.

Publius’ main point, though, is the bottom line: The rules must be observed. Simply handing the delegates to Clinton based on sham races would be a travesty. But disenfranchising two of the most populous states in the country as punishment for the gamesmanship of their political leaders won’t do, either.

Well, the polls are closing in parts of the country and results will be flowing in all night.

Drudge has some leaked exit poll results showing Obama doing better than expected in Alabama and a couple of other states. How reliable they will turn out is anyone’s guess. My strong expectation is that I’ll have gone to bed before the results are known out West.

CNN is projecting McCain the winner in New Jersey but then that’s no surprise.

ABC News, which provides my favorite mainstream media website package for primary returns (and from whom I borrowed the Super Tuesday graphic above) has Obama taking his home state of Illinois, Romney taking his home state of Massachusetts, Clinton taking Oklahoma, and McCain taking New Jersey, Connecticut, and Illinois.

UPDATE (2047): CNN-HDTV is projecting McCain to take Delaware and Huckabee and Clinton to win in their home states of Arkansas.

They’re also giving an inordinate amount of coverage to Georgia, where they say Romney is staking his comeback hopes. That strikes me as an odd place for him to make his stand, frankly, if true.

Their color scheme for the candidates is rather odd. The Dems get blue, with clinton getting light and Obama dark (hidden racist symbolism?) while the Republicans get red: regular red for McCain, pink for Huckabee, and brownish red for Romney; not sure who got to pick but I’m guessing it wasn’t the Huckabee camp.

They’re projecting Obama to take Georgia.

Wolf Blitzer briefly gave McCain Massachusetts but then recanted.

A bunch of states close their polls at 9 Eastern which should lead to a handful of exit poll projections in states where the outcome was essentially not in doubt.

UPDATE (2104): No new MSM projections yet, although they’ll be coming soon.

OTB projects McCain and Clinton will take New York.

Drudge has the summary of the count so far: Clinton taking Arkansas, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma and Tennessee and Obama taking Georgia and Illinois. McCain takes Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, New Jersey; Huckabee gets Arkansas and West Virginia; and Romney Massachusetts.

CNN has now joined OTB in projecting Clinton to take New York, which she represents in the Senate.

UPDATE (2147): Alabama goes to Obama. New York “officially” to McCain. Strangely, not a lot of other projections yet.

CNN-TV has finally given Clinton New Jersey which, again, would have been a shocker had it gone any other way.

Regular commenter Triumph has created a chatroom wherein you may cyber-chat about tonight’s results.

UPDATE (2200): Utah to Romney. Rather a foregone conclusion.

Oklahoma to McCain.

North Dakota to Obama. So, yes, he can win a predominately white state!

UPDATE (2220): CNN-TV projects Obama wins Kansas and Connecticut. He’s sweeping through White America! And half of Connecticut commutes to work in NYC.

I watched Huckabee’s speech which was quite polished and eloquent. Except for the surreal moments when he kept mentioning that he would be president in about a year, which of course he won’t. One wonders how candidates do that without feeling like idiots.

Huckabee did take Alabama, though.

Obama takes the Minnesota caucus. Of course, Jesse Jackson won that back in 1984, right?

UPDATE (2358 – Alex Knapp): Here are the states that can be called so far, according to CNN. I have bolded those states where the winner had over 60% of the vote.

Democrats
Obama – AL, CO, CT, DE, GA, ID, IL, KS, MN, ND, UT
Clinton – AR, MA, NJ, NY, OK, TN

Republicans
McCain -AZ, CT, DE, IL, NJ, NY, OK
Romney – MA, MN, ND, UT
Huckabee -AL, AR, GA, WV

UPDATE (0045 – Alex Knapp): CNN has just called California for McCain and Clinton. Clinton’s showing is pretty impressive at this point–55% to 33%. However, I wonder just how much Clinton can honestly see this as a big win. The 10% vote for Edwards suggest that there was a very significant portion of early voting going on in the state. Still, there’s no doubt that the combination of New York and California was a good thing for Clinton.

Arizona has also been called for Clinton. Missouri is still too close to call, but Obama has a slight lead. All in all on the Democrat’s side so far, a surprisingly strong night for Obama, though Clinton remains the frontrunner.

On the Republican side, this is clearly a big night for John McCain and a disappointing one for Romney. Huckabee’s campaign, though, has shown some surprising strength tonight, even though it’s next to certain that McCain is going to take the nomination at this point.

UPDATE (0105 – Alex Knapp): CNN has called Missouri for McCain, and while they haven’t been willing to call Missouri for Obama, I’m willing to at this point, since 99% of precincts are reporting and Obama has the lead.

UPDATE (0115 – Alex Knapp): On the Democratic side, Obama has picked up Alaska and the poll results trickling in from New Mexico show a slight Clinton lead, but it’s way too early to call New Mexico.

On the GOP side, Huckabee has picked up Tennessee. Romney has locked up Colorado and Montana.

The 2008 primaries are dividing political parties, with significant numbers of Republicans saying they won’t support John McCain and many Democrats saying they can’t bring themselves to vote for Hillary Clinton. With this weekend’s endorsement of McCain and Barack Obama by California first couple Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver, respectively, we see splits within families as well.

Maria Shriver woke up Sunday morning and decided to surprise the audience at a rally for Senator Barack Obama in Los Angeles, materializing alongside Oprah Winfrey and telling the crowd she was there because she sought “an America that’s about unity.” But not the family kind. Ms. Shriver is a member of the Kennedy clan, and in the past week, her relatives have split over the Democratic race, publicizing their preferences on opinion pages and at campaign events.

With Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Mr. Obama locked in a tight race before Tuesday’s voting, the campaign has turned into a gigantic family feud, with prominent and everyday Democrats splitting with spouses, siblings, parents and children. There is former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin (Clinton supporter) and his son James (Obama); Representative Charles B. Rangel (Clinton), his wife, Alma (Obama); the Rev. Jesse Jackson (Obama), his wife, Jacqueline (Clinton), and their sons (split).

Loretta and Linda Sanchez, the only sisters in the House of Representatives, have endorsed Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama, respectively. And Penny Pritzker, a Chicago philanthropist, serves as Mr. Obama’s national finance chairman even as her brother, Jay Robert, holds fund-raisers across town for Mrs. Clinton.

“Within the family, for the first time you have different opinions,” Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Republican governor of California and Ms. Shriver’s husband, told The San Francisco Chronicle last week, around the same time Mr. Obama was calling his wife and coaxing her to his side. Three of Robert F. Kennedy’s children have endorsed Mrs. Clinton, while their mother, Ethel Kennedy, supports Mr. Obama, along with Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy and Representative Patrick J. Kennedy. “I’ve been in the family 30 years, and I’ve never seen that,” said Mr. Schwarzenegger, who has endorsed Senator John McCain.

[...]

In any election, members of the same families choose competing candidates. But while some primaries hinge on policy differences, this one also turns on the deep, perennial disagreements between parents and children, husbands and wives. Older family members argue with younger ones about experience versus freshness. Men and women question whether they operate on a level playing field. And when husbands and wives discuss the Clinton marriage, they often touch on raw issues within their own.

There’s more passion in this race than we’ve seen in quite some time. Certainly, it’s been generations since we’ve seen both parties have nomination battles this competitive at the same time.

Story via Memeorandum. Photo from Sydney Morning Herald.

As Chris Lawrence posted last night, Barack Obama handily won the South Carolina Democratic primary and native son John Edwards came in third.

The results, with a record turnout, were stunning:

Obama has long been projected to win, of course, but the RealClearPolitics average of the recent polls had it much closer: 38.4 to 26.8 to 19.2 As has happened with some frequency, the polls got the order of finish right and pegged the finish of the losers with great accuracy but far under-projected the ultimate vote for the winner.

The immediate result of this is that, if there was any doubt before, John Edwards is toast. Indeed, I’d say he’s crumbs at the bottom at the toaster at this point; it’s simply inconceivable that he’ll take the nomination at this point.

Technically, Edwards isn’t very far behind in the delegate count and could easily make up the difference. In reality, though, he’s 0-for-5 thus far in the states leading up to Super Tuesday and has lost in two states, Iowa and South Carolina, that played to his strengths. He’s vowed to stay in the race “to give voice to millions of Americans who have absolutely no voice” but I’d be quite surprised if he takes a single state.

Then again, most of us already figured that it was a two-way race between Clinton and Obama. Obviously, Obama gets a boost here from having won — especially given the margin — but it’s a pretty minor one since Clinton will almost surely win Florida Tuesday and regain the momentum.

Obama’s win was expected and the Clintons have done a good job of downplaying it. Maybe too good a job.

Bill Clinton has pointed out that “Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in 84 and 88,” seemingly continuing to highlight the race issue.

While it’s silly to say that the Democrats are the Party of the Klan, as Erick Erickson says with tongue in cheek, it’s going to be very difficult for the Clintons to repair their relationship with blacks once the nomination fight is over. While it’s incredibly unlikely that large numbers will defect to the GOP over this, it could seriously hamper the get out the vote effort with a key Democratic constituency.

And it seems to have backfired in the short term, at least if the exit polls are any indication.

Roughly 6 in 10 South Carolina Democratic primary voters said Bill Clinton’s campaigning was important in how they ultimately decided to vote, and of those voters, 48 percent went for Barack Obama while only 37 percent went for Hillary Clinton. Fourteen percent of those voters voted for John Edwards

Meanwhile, the exit polls also indicate Obama easily beat Clinton among those voters who decided in the last three days — when news reports heavily covered the former president’s heightened criticisms of Obama. Twenty percent of South Carolina Democrats made their decision in the last three days and 51 percent of them chose Obama, while only 21 percent picked Clinton.

In fairness, though, the press is also playing this as a race story.

ABC’s Jennifer Parker leads her report thusly:

Sen. Barack Obama, vying to become the nation’s first black president, has won the South Carolina primary today, boosted by a record turnout of African-American voters.

Her colleagues, Gary Langer and Brian Hartman, have a companion analysis piece entitled, “Black Voters Lift Obama to S.C. Victory; Obama Showing Among White Voters in S.C. Indicates Uphill Battle Ahead.”

A vast wave of support from African-Americans lifted Barack Obama to victory in South Carolina’s Democratic primary. But his showing among white voters suggests an uphill battle in those upcoming primaries where black voters may play less of a role.

Blacks accounted for a majority of voters in South Carolina, 55 percent — the highest turnout among African-Americans in any Democratic presidential primary for which data are available. And a huge proportion of them, 78 percent, supported Obama, compared with 19 percent for Hillary Clinton and just 2 percent for John Edwards.

And how’s this for buying into the Clintons’ framing:

Obama’s showing among blacks echoed Jesse Jackson’s victory in the 1984 and 1988 South Carolina primaries, and also Obama’s result in this year’s Nevada caucuses, where he won 83 percent of African-Americans. At the same time, Obama also won young, nonblack voters in South Carolina, with 52 percent support from those under age 30, although they accounted for just 5 percent of all voters.

Jackson was a civil rights candidate running on black themes; that’s just not the case with Obama, who’s running a mainstream, mass appeal campaign. Still, this much is fair:

Much in the way religion has been a dividing factor in the Republican contest, with sharp divisions between evangelical and nonevangelical voters, so now is race in the Democratic presidential primaries.

AP’s David Espo and Charles Babington play the story more traditionally but still include a racial reference in their lede:

Barack Obama routed Hillary Rodham Clinton in the racially charged South Carolina primary Saturday night, regaining campaign momentum in the prelude to a Feb. 5 coast-to-coast competition for more than 1,600 Democratic National Convention delegates.

TIME’s Karen Tumulty weighs in with the alliterative headline, “Obama’s Rout Rejiggers the Race.”

Obama’s impressive win meant all the more given the nature of politics in South Carolina, a state whose history is fraught with race and class. Some observers wondered if the state’s voters were becoming more racially polarized in the final days before the primary. That speculation was fueled by one late McClatchy/MSNBC survey that suggested Obama could expect to receive no more than 10% of the white vote, half of what the same poll had shown only a week before. But Obama instead won about a quarter of the white vote overall, and around half of young white voters, on his way to a commanding 55% of the total vote (Clinton finished second with roughly 27% and Edwards came in third with 18%). The excitement around Obama’s candidacy pushed turnout to record levels – a kind of surge, says Obama strategist Cornell Belcher, that “is something only Barack Obama is capable of bringing to the table.”

[...]

Still, the sobering reality for the Obama campaign is that Clinton’s massive organization will present a formidable challenge in the 20-plus states that will be voting on February 5. Clinton, knowing that bad news was coming, didn’t even hold a final rally for her supporters in South Carolina; shortly after the polls closed, her campaign plane was headed for Tennessee. She issued a terse written statement noting that she had called Obama to “wish him well,” and adding, “We now turn our attention to the millions of Americans who will make their voices heard in Florida and the twenty-two states as well as American Samoa who will vote on February 5th.” Bill Clinton, at a rally in Missouri, added: “Now we go to February 5, when millions of Americans finally get in the act.”

One outlier here is WaPo, whose A01 story by Dan Balz, Anne E. Kornblut and Shailagh Murray focuses almost entirely on the horse race.

Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois won the South Carolina primary in a landslide Saturday, attracting a biracial coalition that gave his candidacy a much-needed boost as the Democratic presidential race moves toward a 22-state showdown on Feb. 5.

Jay Cost looks at the racial breakdowns in the contests up to now and assesses it thusly:

Clinton has done well among Hispanics. Obama has done well among African Americans. Depending on where and when, white voters vary their support. How will that play out on Super Tuesday? We can get a sense from the following table, which reviews the states on Super Tuesday, their pledged delegates, and the percentage of their residents who are white, African American, and Hispanic:

So, if the contest continues to break down along racial lines, Obama can’t win. I continue to believe — or perhaps merely hope — that something other than race is driving the contest, though.

Interestingly, Caroline Kennedy is saying Obama would be “A President Like My Father” — and given space in the NYT op-ed section to do it:

OVER the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wished they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president. This sense is even more profound today. That is why I am supporting a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama.

My reasons are patriotic, political and personal, and the three are intertwined. All my life, people have told me that my father changed their lives, that they got involved in public service or politics because he asked them to. And the generation he inspired has passed that spirit on to its children. I meet young people who were born long after John F. Kennedy was president, yet who ask me how to live out his ideals.

Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things. In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible.

If the nomination is decided on the basis of inspiration, Obama will certainly win; Hillary simply lacks her husband’s charm and charisma — then again, Bill’s not exactly coming across as charming in his attack dog role, either. My guess, though, is that it’ll still come down to organization, experience, and Establishment support. Which means Clinton surges ahead for good next week in Florida and then takes the lion’s share of the Super Tuesday states.

We’ll see whether she can repair the damage her scorched earth campaign tactics have done after that.

Several prominent black leaders are assailing Bill and Hillary Clinton for their use of racially insensitive language in their campaign against Barack Obama, Ben Smith reports for The Politico.

A series of comments from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, her husband and her supporters are spurring a racial backlash and adding a divisive edge to the presidential primary as the candidates head south to heavily African-American South Carolina.

The comments, which ranged from the New York senator appearing to diminish the role of Martin Luther King Jr. in the civil rights movement — an aide later said she misspoke — to Bill Clinton dismissing Sen. Barack Obama’s image in the media as a “fairy tale” — generated outrage on black radio, black blogs and cable television. And now they’ve drawn the attention of prominent African-American politicians.

“A cross-section of voters are alarmed at the tenor of some of these statements,” said Obama spokeswoman Candice Tolliver, who said that Clinton would have to decide whether she owed anyone an apology. “There’s a groundswell of reaction to these comments — and not just these latest comments but really a pattern, or a series of comments that we’ve heard for several months,” she said. “Folks are beginning to wonder: Is this really an isolated situation, or is there something bigger behind all of this?”

[...]

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., through a spokesman, used even stronger language. “Following Barack Obama’s victory in Iowa and historic voter turnout in New Hampshire, the cynics unfortunately have stepped up their efforts to decry his uplifting message of hope and fundamental change. “Regrettably, they have resorted to distasteful and condescending language that appeals to our fears rather than our hopes. I sincerely hope that they’ll turn away from such reactionary, disparaging rhetoric.”

[...]

The series of comments Clinton critics’ cite began in mid-December, when the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s New Hampshire campaign, Bill Shaheen, speculated about whether Obama had ever dealt drugs. In the final days of the New Hampshire campaign, however, the discomfort of some black observers intensified as Bill Clinton dismissed the contrast between Obama’s judgment on the war and Clinton’s as a “fairy tale” and spoke dismissively of his short time in the Senate. And the candidate herself, in an interview with Fox News, stressed the role of President Lyndon Johnson, over Martin Luther King Jr., in the civil rights movement.

“I would point to the fact that Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the president before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done,” she said, in response to a question about how her dismissive attitude toward Obama’s “false hopes” would have applied to the civil rights movement. “That dream became a reality, the power of that dream became real in people’s lives because we had a president who said we are going to do it and actually got it accomplished.”

An aide later said Clinton didn’t intend to diminish King, and later that day she went out of her way to stress his accomplishment and courage in leading a movement.

Then, when Obama lost New Hampshire, the first question on black media outlets like “The Tom Joyner Show” was whether white racism had defeated him, and when a Clinton supporter, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, said — though not directly in connection to Obama — that politicians can’t “shuck and jive” in early-primary states, it only added fuel to the fire.

[...]

“For him to go after Obama, using a ‘fairy tale,’ calling him as he did last week, it’s an insult. And I will tell you, as an African-American, I find his tone and his words to be very depressing,” Donna Brazile, a longtime Clinton ally who is neutral in this race, said on CNN earlier this week.

Asked in an e-mail from Politico about the situation Friday, she responded by sending over links to five cases in which the Clintons and their surrogates talked about Obama, along with a question:
“Is Clinton using a race-baiting strategy against Obama?”

Having watched for years as the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons unleashed these type of attacks on Republicans for similarly innocuous comments, I must confess to a certain degree of schadenfreude here. And, frankly, the Clintons are Grade A race baiters in their own right, being past masters of stirring up black resentment of Republicans.

Still, this is ridiculous.

Bill Clinton’s “fairy tale” line has nothing whatsoever to do with race. Here’s a full clip of the comments:

He’s angrily rebutting the idea that Obama’s judgment on the Iraq War was superior to his wife’s and lamenting that the media has allowed that “fairy tale” to go unchallenged.

Similarly, it’s hard to look at Hillary’s rather inartful response to a question about MLK’s dream going away and see it as a dissing of King:

It’s inarguably true that it ultimately takes action on the part of political leaders, especially presidents, to make drastic changes in public policy. Surely, one shouldn’t have to qualify every statement made about King’s legacy with “of course he was a wonderful, wonderful man and the greatest leader our country has ever seen, and golly gee whiz he was wonderful.”

Cuomo’s “shuck and jive” comments are a classic case of unfortunate origins. The phrase undeniably has racist roots:

To shuck and jive” originally referred to the intentionally misleading words and actions that African-Americans would employ in order to deceive racist Euro-Americans in power, both during the period of slavery and afterwards. The expression was documented as being in wide usage in the 1920s, but may have originated much earlier.

It has been decades, though, since that connotation attached. Nowadays, it has the same colloquial use as “tap dance” or various other phrases used to connote an attempt to avoid giving straight answers to a question.

Other Reactions:

• Juliette Ochieng starts us off with a plea: “Fellow Americans, here’s a suggestion: how about we not fantasize about this country turning into Kenya or Pakistan or reverting to the 1968 version of the USA just yet.”

• Gun Toting Liberal wonders, in a post entitled “Nation’s First Two Black (Co) Presidents Feeling Backlash From Supporters Of Nation’s Potential Third Black President,” “[I]sn’t it a bit pretentious of the Senator from Illinois to jump on the “he/she/it’s not black enough” bandwagon after being victimized by it himself for months?”

• Jules Crittenden, “Given that Obama, if elected, would be the president with the least political, government and/or executive experience in living memory, and the competition is being told to shut up on the grounds of ‘equal opportunity,’ it’s almost like they’re trying to turn him into America’s first affirmative-action president.”

• Ann Althouse: “Obama supporters have a motivation to characterize things as racial that are not, and the Clinton campaign must be frustrated that it’s hard to attack Obama, who seems to be getting a free pass. But I don’t doubt that the Clintons will use whatever works for them. Insinuations — and even slip-ups — don’t work, however, when so many people are so ready to detect racial content.”

• Karl @ Protein Wisdom: “[I]t is tough to muster sympathy as those who stoked the fires of political correctness and identity politics get singed by the blowback.”

• Bithead: “Racism, or Sexism? Which will win the Democratic Nomination?”

• Jim Addison: “It seems to me someone predicted this contest would eventually involve charges of ‘racism’ or at least ‘insensitivity,’ but I can’t remember who it was . . .”

• Sister Toldjah: “I don’t feel one ounce of sympathy for the false implied allegations of racism against her, not after what she and her party have done over the years to advance the myth that conservatives are nothing but cold-hearted racists, a vicious tactic liberal Democrats like Hillary Clinton have used routinely for shameless political purposes.”

• Marc Ambinder: “One thing is certain: it’s tough for people to figure out how to talk about a black candidate, including the campaign of the black candidate himself.”

• Josh Marshall has an interesting essay on the difficulties of covering such an issue. Notably, “It’s genuinely unclear to me how much one side or the other is consciously pushing this, how much it’s escalated based in part on misunderstandings, or whether, in a somewhat related fashion, hyping journalistic accounts has given the engagement a life of its own.”

• Matt Stoller, though, thinks there’s much more to the charges than most of us credit: “There’s a kind of cultural racism and elitism that the boomer Clintonistas carry around with them.”

More reax at memeorandum.

Markos Moulitsas Zúniga has issued a call for Democrats to come out in droves to influence the Republican primary in Michigan:

In 1972, Republican voters in Michigan decided to make a little mischief, crossing over to vote in the open Democratic primary and voting for segregationist Democrat George Wallace, seriously embarrassing the state’s Democrats. In fact, a third of the voters (PDF) in the Democratic primary were Republican crossover votes. In 1988, Republican voters again crossed over, helping Jesse Jackson win the Democratic primary, helping rack up big margins for Jackson in Republican precincts. (Michigan Republicans can clearly be counted on to practice the worst of racial politics.) In 1998, Republicans helped Jack Kevorkian’s lawyer — quack Geoffrey Feiger — win his Democratic primary, thus guaranteeing their hold on the governor’s mansion that year.

With a history of meddling in our primaries, why don’t we try and return the favor. Next Tuesday, January 15th, Michigan will hold its primary. Michigan Democrats should vote for Mitt Romney, because if Mitt wins, Democrats win.

Whether the last sentiment is true (and I think it is) it’s an interesting idea to which the blogosphere has responded to Kos’ post with enthusiasm.

Duncan “Atrios” Black is endorsing the plan without reservation.

Steve Benen is on board, although he concedes Romney could wind up being more formidable in the general election than most now think. He’s willing to take his chances, though.

TBogg loves the idea because, “the longer Romney stays in, the more money he’ll throw into those negative “contrast” ads that he is so proud of.”

Matt Yglesias figures Democrats could do this for non-cynical reasons, noting, “I’d take President Romney over President McCain or President Huckabee.”

Bob Owensthinks Kos is taking liberties with history, arguing Wallace would have taken Michigan without Republican crossovers; that’s probably true.

Ron Beasley cries Foul, arguing that Democrats would lose the moral high ground they now hold if they resorted to such chicanery. (Of course, Democrats have done quite a bit of cross-over voting before — most recently for McCain in 2000 — but for non-nefarious purposes.)

Sister Toldja believes the very idea of this plan “shows you the depth of the far left’s depravity this campaign season, and their willingness to do whatever it takes to win the election.”

Ann Althouse thinks Romney would be a very competitive nominee and, moreover, a prolonged Republican primary would be to the party’s benefit.

Ed Morrissey is nonplussed by the plan, figuring the influence of the netroots will pale against that of the party GOTV efforts and believes “almost all of the crossover votes will get cast earnestly.” I tend to think so as well; not that many people are going to go to all the trouble of making mischief and, really, there would be better ways to do that than voting Romney. (Libby Spencer suggests a Ron Paul vote as a more effective strategy.)

Regardless, though, primaries are where the political parties select their tickets. They should, therefore, be closed to registered members of the parties.

Bob Novak reports that some Democrats are looking past the primaries and arguing that Hillary Clinton should bypass Barack Obama for Mark Warner as her running mate.

Anticipating that Sen. Hillary Clinton will clinch the Democratic presidential nomination, some supporters are beginning to argue against her choosing her principal rival — Sen. Barack Obama — for vice president. They maintain Obama provides no general election help for Clinton. As an African-American from Illinois, he represents an ethnic group and a state already solidly in the Democratic column.

This school of thought advocates a Southerner as Clinton’s running mate. The last time Democrats won a national election without a Southerner on the ticket was 1944. Prominent Democrats from the South are in short supply today. The leading prospect: former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner.

While I think Clinton the overwhelming favorite for the nomination, this is certainly premature, what with her thus far having zero delegates in her column.

If the primaries somehow shape up to look like the current national polls — there’s a first time for everything — it would be awfully difficult for her to snub the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.

It’s true that Jesse Jackson did quite well in 1984, coming in third and getting over twenty percent of the primary votes. And the number two vote getter, Gary Hart, had long since withdrawn from the race after an embarrassing sex scandal. But Jackson was a strident candidate with virtually no appeal outside the black community. And he was passed over for a woman, Geraldine Ferraro, taking away much of the backlash that might have followed if Jackson had been snubbed for a white guy.

By contrast, Obama seems to be popular across a wide swath of the party. Passing him over if he’s the number two vote getter would quite likely alienate a sizable number of Democrats. If, as I suspect, this election once again comes down to turnout, that would be a huge gamble for Clinton to take.

Correction: A former colleague reminds me that the Gary Hart-Donna Rice scandal broke in 1988, during Hart’s second bid for the White House.