Posted by
RightChuck on Sunday, October 12, 2008 11:29:08 AM
A Democratic Representative from Georgia, John Lewis, has compared John McCain and Sarah Palin to George Wallace. Governor George Wallace was a segregation proponent from Georgia. Rep Lewis, in comparing McCain and Palin to Wallace, is claiming that they are fanning the flames of hatred.
"What I am seeing reminds me of too much of another destructive period in American history," Lewis said in a statement released to FOX News. "Senator McCain and Governor Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse."
Rest of the story here:
The implication couldn’t be clearer, criticizing Barack Obama is racism.
The reality is that we better get used to this. I predicted early on that this would be the pattern. Towards the end if Obama was losing, or was under attack, his supporters will trot out the racism charge. It is an absolute gaurantee. He of course will stay above the fray, he has even come out and disagreed with Rep Lewis on this, but it’s out there.
In fact I will go even farther and say it is a planned strategy. Stand ins will cry racism and Obama will say “no, I don’t think he meant it that way”. Obama’s campaign knows, as well as I do, what the media is going to report. They won’t report the denial by Obama as much as they will report the charge of racism against McCain.
This happened after the last debate. Obama supporters raised a fuss over McCain’s “that one” remark. Somehow “that one” has now become a racist remark. The campaign let the issue stew awhile, let their supporters attack, let the media report on it. Then after a little while, Michelle Obama quitely went on Larry King and said she didn’t feel that McCain meant to be racist. This is a win-win for Obama. His supporters tar and feather McCain in the media, at the same time if they are attacked for raising a false call of racism, they can point to Michelle’s remarks on King.
The scary part is that if the phrase “that one” can be turned into charges of racism, what could McCain say that is ok?
This brings us back to my original point, we better get used to it. The reality is is that this is going to happen. The question is, will it help Obama? 20 – 30 years ago you would have to say yes. Today, I’m not so sure. These charges of racism are mostly a matter of speaking to the choir. They also could have the effect of turning off people that were already leery of Obama on the race issue. Fewer and fewer whites today are full of “white guilt”. I think a lot of whites are growing increasingly wearisome of the constant cries of racism. It’s possible that this may make some resentful. Time will tell.