If we do indeed see a “post-racial” presidency from Barack Obama it won’t be because of the candidate’s transcendence, but because of the ability of some of his supporters to discern racial components in just about any criticism of Democrats. It’s become parodic. And boring.
For example, mentioning Obama and Fannie Mae in the same sentence is racist, even though the former head (he resigned over his Fannie connection) of Obama’s VP search committee was Fannie’s CEO, Obama is the second largest recipient of campaign funds from Fannie and the Washington Post reported that Obama received advice from another disgraced Fannie Mae CEO, Franklin Raines.
In the four years since he stepped down as Fannie Mae’s chief executive under the shadow of a $6.3 billion accounting scandal, Franklin D. Raines has been quietly constructing a new life for himself. He has shaved eight points off his golf handicap, taken a corner office in Steve Case’s D.C. conglomeration of finance, entertainment and health-care companies and more recently, taken calls from Barack Obama’s presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters.
Barney Frank explains why associating Democrats with Fannie is racist:
Frank says GOP housing attacks racially motivated
…Rep. Barney Frank said Monday that Republican criticism of Democrats over the nation’s housing crisis is a veiled attack on the poor that’s racially motivated.
The AP points out that criticizing Obama’s ideas is “racially tinged.”
“Our opponent,” Ms. Palin told donors in Englewood, Colo., “is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”
She added, “This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America,” she said. “We see America as a force of good in this world. We see an America of exceptionalism.”
An Associated Press analysis characterized those remarks as “unsubstantiated” and carrying “a racially tinged subtext.”
Obama’s associations with Father Pfleger, Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Mazen Asbahi, Frank Marshall Davis, Michael Klonsky, ACORN and his membership in the socialist New Party put him outside the mainstream, but mentioning that is racist. Comments about “clinging to guns and religion” and criticizing America in Germany are just normal politics, right?
Don’t like Obama’s policy leanings? You must be racist. Only if you’re “The One” can you talk about “not being like those guys on the dollar bill” and not be racist.
I was recently accused of having “deep seated hatred running just under your [MY] words.”it was because I mentioned how Barrack HUSSEIN Obama got his start helping BLACK families.A little overly sensitive might be one assessment, but I am not sure that it isn’t a safe way to attack my point of view without having to resort to logic.my 2 pennies anyhow.
Great post, Hershblogger.