RACE

Posted at 7:31 p.m. ET

The race card is being played.  As always, it's ugly.  It's being played against John McCain, who is anything but a racist.  This man, after all, has adopted a child of color.

But who cares about facts?  The leftovers from the 1960s think it's just ducky to charge a man with racism, and they do this as a matter of routine.  After all, if you believe that America is a racist society, and the American "power structure" is inherently racist, than charging a presidential candidate with racism comes with the package.

But Jonathan Martin, at The Politico, writes a thoughtful piece debunking the charge against McCain.  The Politico leans liberal, and it's good to see that they did this.  There are a couple of lines that I think are a bit unfair to McCain, but overall the piece is solid:

John McCain is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. He could never mention Jeremiah Wright and ensure his campaign aides don't either, and he'd still be accused of running a racist campaign.

That's the way the game is played.

But is McCain doing anything overtly racist? No

Nice to see that someone's rational.

That doesn't matter, though, to the outrage industry, ever on the lookout for any sign of racism and quick to pounce even when it's not there.

I was reminded of McCain's quandary when I got an e-mail touting the expertise of a college professor. Now, reporters get such pitches from PR shops and college publicity departments all the time. But this one stood out:

Lester Spence, an assistant professor of political science at The Johns Hopkins University, is available to discuss with reporters his belief that racial overtones are becoming part of Sen. John McCain's campaign rhetoric as Election Day approaches.

"Sen. John McCain's recent attacks on Barack Obama, accusing him of being a terrorist, combined with GOP columnists and bloggers arguing that Obama supports 'painting the white house black' and 'racial reparations' represent an embrace of the problematic 'Southern Strategy' that the GOP has historically used to increase white racial resentment," said Spence, who is African American. "But as can be seen in the most recent presidential debate, he is employing this strategy selectively, only among the GOP faithful."

McCain has not called Obama "a terrorist."

And those "GOP columnists and bloggers?" Spence is apparently referring to Peter Wallsten's LA Times story on Sunday that drew much liberal outrage. In the piece — a well-reported and fascinating look at Obama's racial challenges in Appalachia — Wallsten alluded to a Republican activist in Southwest Virginia who wrote a racially offensive column for a local paper.

From that — one isolated piece from a low-level party activist in a rural paper that only got noticed by the good reporting of a journalist who delved deep into the coalfields — Spence infers "an embrace of the problematic 'Southern Strategy' that the GOP has historically used to increase white racial resentment?"

And McCain's plight:

He's now in a no-win position. His supporters want him to use Wright against Obama, seeing it as the closest thing they have to a silver bullet in a difficult race. But, as messages like the above prove, he is already being accused of racism without ever mentioning the controversial pastor. One can only imagine the accusations that would rain down upon McCain should he extend his indictment of Obama's judgment to the Democrat's decision to sit in Wright's pews.

I'm afraid reporters are afraid of the same accusations, which is one reason why Obama has become the least examined presidential candidate in recent memory.

Watch for the race card to be played skillfully in the closing weeks, in an attempt to make us feel guilty if we don't vote for The One.

October 8, 2008.