Photo credits: ABCNews photo illustrationMark Mooney reports at ABC News today, Aug. 1, 2008, that David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist, has conceded Obama was referring to race in his comment the other day when he said Republicans were trying to scare voters by suggesting Obama "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."
Interesting that several leading online news sources reporting on this latest incident agree with my earlier post that Obama’s attempt to use the race card in the general election is just a replay of his campaign’s repeated efforts to smear the Clintons as racists during the Democratic primary.
I think Obama is making a mistake here. If he'd just be quiet about it most of the racists would just begin to see him as (to quote Archie Bunker referring to Harry Belafonte) "a good-looking white guy with a real nice tan."
ReplyDeleteRacists don't hate individual black people, once they get to know them. They hate "those people" who are always mysterious and scary and threatening. Always just out of reach-- never familiar. Always "other."
You have a point, Dan. But I also think Obama is accusing the wrong people of racism. If you're at all aware of contemporary history, you know that neither the Clintons or John McCain are racists. And even if either of these three people were racist, they would each know better than to try to win an election using racist tactics. Unfortunately, in America today, sexism is still deemed okay among the powers that be in politics, government, business, the media, etc.
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