...Mr. Obama has to endure these grotesque insults with a smile and heroic levels of equanimity. The reason he has to do this -- the sole reason -- is that he is black.
So there he was this week speaking evenly, and with a touch of humor, to a nearly all-white audience in Missouri. His goal was to reassure his listeners, to let them know he's not some kind of unpatriotic ogre.
Mr. Obama told them: "What they're going to try to do is make you scared of me. 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 those dollar bills, you know. He's risky."
The audience seemed to appreciate his comments. Mr. Obama was well-received.
But John McCain didn't appreciate them. RACE CARD! RACE CARD! The McCain camp started bellowing, and it hasn't stopped since. With great glee bursting through their feigned outrage, the campaign's operatives and the candidate himself accused Senator Obama of introducing race into the campaign -- playing the race card, as they put it, from the very bottom of the deck.
Whatever you think about Barack Obama, he does not want the race issue to be front and center in this campaign. Every day that the campaign is about race is a good day for John McCain. So I guess we understand Mr. McCain's motivation.
As is every Republican who doesn't publically disavow this hate-campaign.
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