Times ed board: McCain move 'racially tinged'

Politico ^ | 08/01/2008 | Ben Smith

[JRochelle]

It wasnt so long ago that John McCain was The New York Times' favorite Republican.

Now, the editorial board is apparently so fed up that they can't wait until next day's paper and is blogging about him in the middle of the day:

[T]here was something surreal, and offensive, about today’s soundbite from the campaign of Senator John McCain.

The presumptive Republican nominee has embarked on a bare-knuckled barrage of negative advertising aimed at belittling Mr. Obama. The most recent ad compares the presumptive Democratic nominee for president to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton — suggesting to voters that he’s nothing more than a bubble-headed, publicity-seeking celebrity.

The ad gave us an uneasy feeling that the McCain campaign was starting up the same sort of racially tinged attack on Mr. Obama that Republican operatives, some of whom work for Mr. McCain now, ran against Harold Ford, a black candidate for Senate in Tennessee in 2006. That assault, too, began with videos juxtaposing Mr. Ford with young, white women.

Mr. Obama called Mr. McCain on the ploy, saying, quite rightly, that the Republicans are trying to scare voters by pointing out that he “doesn’t look like all those other Presidents on those dollar bills.’’

But Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, had a snappy answer. “Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck,” he said. “It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong.’’

The retort was, we must say, not only contemptible, but shrewd. It puts the sin for the racial attack not on those who made it, but on the victim of the attack.

It also — and we wish this were coincidence, but we doubt it — conjurs up another loaded racial image.

The phrase dealing the race card “from the bottom of the deck” entered the national lexicon during the O.J. Simpson saga. Robert Shapiro, one of Mr. Simpson’s lawyers, famously declared of himself, Johnny Cochran and the rest of the Simpson defense team, “Not only did we play the race card, we dealt it from the bottom of the deck.”round

[TheThinker]

It was smart of McCain to jump out front and call Obama on race-baiting. Ozbama’s reputation is already tarnished somewhat in that regard. Don’t go too far, Johnny, or it might backfire.

[weegee]

From this review, the NYet Times apparently supports “racially tinged” movies at least sometimes:

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9E0CE3DD173CF934A15750C0A964958260

White Men Can’t Jump (1992)
March 27, 1992
Review/Film; “Oh Well, Jumping Isn’t Everything”

“The torrent of your-mama comic insults heard in the basketball film “White Men Can’t Jump” suggests constant antipathy among the film’s racially mixed cast of characters. So does the fact that the actors are forever shoving one another’s shoulders when they deliver these lines.”

“Like the movie characters they are, Billy and Sidney develop a close rapport forged out of enthusiastically traded wisecracks (Sidney’s friends often refer to Billy in terms of “The Brady Bunch” or “The Andy Griffith Show”).”

---

And there was an inter-racial romance in this film too.

But NO ONE is tying Obama to Britney Paris ROMANTICALLY or SEXUALLY.

Obama is bitching about how McCain won’t debate the issues with him. Obama is the one who turned down McCain’s offer for 10 town hall style debates.

Obama talks trash and his mouth writes checks his a** can’t cash.

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

I long for the day when a few thousand people will gather outside the Times building in protest against its continued existence, with grim reapers, town criers, and signs saying “Go Fold Yourself!” Maybe a dump truck loaded with unsold papers, and a six-foot-tall canary in NYT diapers pouring white-out on their doorstep.

[Heartland Mom]

There was absolutely nothing racist about the ad. People looking to find racism will find it everywhere. I'm surprised BHO, since he is so consumed with finding it everywhere, failed to notice it when he was attending Rev. Wright's "church" for 20 years.

This is actually very encouraging news because the racism card is usually played when they can't think of anything else.

[PghBaldy]

I have read libs who said it implies that Obama is a threat to white woman.

[PghBaldy]

If McCain had used vapid black celebs, the talk would have been... McCain is pointing out that Obama is black. He can’t win, therefore he has to just charge ahead. NOTHING he does will be innocent to the cynical left. ANYTHING can be implied with anything to do with Obama.

[MortMan]

NYTimes is egregiously conflating the “celebrity” comparison with the “Call me” message from a white actress in the anti-Ford ad. The “call me” was unquestionably sleazy - although apparently quite accurate in Ford’s case. It also wasn’t racist, due to its grounding in truth, but was definitely portrayed that way.

In this case, there is no “there” there.

[PghBaldy]

If they say he is young and inexperienced, people will say he called Obama “boy.” McCain just has to accept this and keep going. Heck, he can do ads about how anything that belittles Obama is interpreted as racist and how Obama is playing the race card. There are more whites than blacks in this country.