All Criticism of Barack Obama is Illegitimate and Probably Racist

Posted by Enrique on 05.15.2008

Despite its declining influence, the mainstream media is taking one last stab at relevance by cramming Barack Obama down the American public’s throat. So far, they’ve portrayed all criticism of Obama as illegitimate and/or racist. It’s been good enough to get him past Clinton in the Dem primary – can the MSM help deliver Obama to the Oval Office?



The story so far…

Barack Obama essentially clinched the Democrat nomination last week with his overwhelming win in North Carolina, and his close loss in Indiana (no one cares about West Virginia). The MSM has been anxiously waiting to pronounce Obama the heroic victor, so that they may lavish praise upon him. Behold Time Magazine's Joe Klein paying tribute:

…McCain has a choice to make: in the past month, he has wobbled between the high and low roads, at one point calling Obama the Hamas candidate for President after a member of that group "endorsed" the Senator from Illinois. If McCain wants to maintain his reputation as a politician more honorable than most, he's going to have to stop the sleaze.

That's a cute use of scare quotes on "endorsed," as if a member of Hamas didn't really endorse Obama's candidacy. In fact, Hamas "political advisor" Ahmed Yousef gave an interview to WABC radio in which he said:


"We don't mind–actually we like Mr. Obama. We hope he will (win) the election and I do believe he is like John Kennedy, great man with great principle, and he has a vision to change America to make it in a position to lead the world community but not with domination and arrogance," Yousef said in response to a question about the group's willingness to meet with either of the Democratic presidential candidates."

Yousef doesn't seem to be discouraging or criticizing Obama's campaign. On the contrary, Yousef says that Hamas looks forward to working with President Barack Obama. A handy word that summarizes Yousef's statement is "endorsement." Naturally, McCain has drawn attention to the fact that Hamas seems to be uncomfortably comfortable with the idea of POTUS Obama. According to Klein, pointing out that Islamist terrorists don't fear Obama is the "low road." Richard Cohen of the Washington Post agrees, accusing McCain of going "into the mud" for exploiting the Hamas issue.

Not to be outdone by their competitors at Time, Evan Thomas and Richard Wolffe wrote a mash note to Obama in the cover story of the latest issue of Newsweek. Thomas and Wolffe lament that the glorious Obama will be subject to unfair and illegitimate campaign tactics by the GOP and McCain. They, too, moan about the Hamas endorsement, and name-check the "notorious" Swift Boat Veterans for Truth as a bonus. The Thomas/Wolffe story was such a shameless hit piece that Newsweek was compelled to print a lengthy response from McCain campaign advisor Mark Salter on its web site:

By accepting the Obama campaign construct as if it were objective, Evan and Richard framed this race exactly as Senator Obama wants it to be framed—every issue that raises doubts about his policy views and judgment is part of a smear campaign intended to distract voters from the real issues at stake in the election, and, thus, illegitimate…

Rather than argue that his position on Iran is the right one and has no bearing on how Hamas views him, Senator Obama makes a false charge that we accused him of advocating a different relationship with Hamas than Senator McCain's supports. His false characterization of Senator McCain's statement was accepted uncritically by Evan and Richard.

Thus far, the MSM has employed two main tactics in boosting Obama, and there's no reason to think they'll stop now. The first tactic, as illustrated above, is to portray opposition campaign strategies as illegitimate. The MSM has been up to this for years, and it's nothing the GOP hasn't seen before. The second tactic, which hasn't been available to the MSM in a presidential campaign until now, is crying "Racism!"

As everyone knows, all Republicans/conservatives are filthy racists at heart, and they put enormous effort into hiding their vile racism from the general public. Fortunately, lefties are especially good at sniffing out racism on the right. In fact, lefty racism radar is so precise, they can find racism even where none seems to exist. Every day, Obama worshippers are discovering new forms of subtle racist code emanating from the McCain campaign, the Clinton campaign, and the GOP. Here are some oblique racial appeals that they have unearthed:

McCain referring to himself as "the American president Americans have been waiting for" in a campaign ad is racist. Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post helpfully notes that the concept of America as a diverse melting pot is "not the America, though, that the Republicans refer to in proclaiming their own Americanness. For them, ‘American' is a term to be used as a wedge issue, a way to distinguish their more racially and religiously homogeneous party from the historically more polyglot Democrats." And I thought it was just clumsy word choice, and maybe a subtle swipe at Obama's patriotism. Good work ferreting out that secret racism, Meyerson.

McCain talking about his personal history is racist. In early April, when McCain became the presumptive GOP nominee, he went on a "biography tour" to inform the electorate about his past heroic deeds, and also that he's really fucking old. But Matthew Yglesias of The Atlantic pointed out that the focus on McCain's biography was "the best way I can think of to try to take advantage of older people's potential discomfort with the idea of a woman or a black man in the White House that doesn't involve exploiting racism or sexism in a discreditable way." (Emphasis in original.) Yglesias has a point – most old people are racist. I hate old people. Racist fuckers.

Questioning Obama's "Electability" is racist. Writing in Time, Massimo Calabresi describes an Obama town hall event where a questioner asked him how he intends to win in November – "In his town hall response, Obama delicately avoided directly addressing what some say is the coded message behind ‘electability': that it's actually just a stand-in for race, and for whether the country is ready to elect a black man President." Granted, there are certainly many Americans that simply won't vote for an African-American. However, electability is always an issue during a primary – Dem voters rejected Howard Dean in 2004 largely because they thought John Kerry was more electable. If anything, "electability" is code for "snooty über-lefty douchebag."

Criticizing Obama for being "elitist" or "out of touch" is racist. On the Los Angeles Times' op-ed page, David K. Shipler calls attention to the silent bigotry lurking beneath the façade of our political discourse: "‘Elitist' is another word for ‘arrogant,' which is another word for ‘uppity,' that old calumny applied to blacks who stood up for themselves…Furthermore, casting Obama as ‘out of touch' plays harmoniously with the traditional notion of blacks as ‘others' at the edge of the mainstream, separate from the whole." Another popular feature of presidential campaigns since the beginning of time has been portraying one's opponent as "out of touch." Who knew it was actually racist code this whole time? Thank you, David K. Shipler, you are a god among men.

Exploiting Jeremiah Wright's controversial statements for political gain is racist. I'd be remiss if I left out the New York Times editorial board. Recently, the North Carolina Republican Party ran a television ad featuring clips of the flamboyant Rev. Wright, calling Obama "too extreme" for the state. The NYT said – "We have said before that we find Rev. Wright's oratory racist…But that's not what this ad is about. The assertion that Mr. Obama is ‘just too extreme for North Carolina' is a clear bid to stir bigotry in a Southern state." Since McCain is kind of a lefty himself, he sensed that accusations of racism were right around the corner, and quickly condemned the NC GOP ad. The NYT commended McCain, but also said he needed to get control of his party. And if McCain's got the approval of the NYT, then by golly, he's got this election sown up.

In fairness, Obama himself has been much more generous. In his terrific Fox News Sunday interview, Obama said that if he loses to McCain in November, "it won't be because of race." He also said that his relationship with Rev. Wright was a legitimate political issue. Obama's supporters in the MSM would be wise to follow their favored candidate's example. It would be more tasteful than swooning over him like a love-struck teenager.