Taking "playing the race card" to a new level

The press hve absolutely lost their minds.

They have been hyperventillating (more than usual) all week, raving about how now race is "splitting" the Democrats. For the most part, they are accusing the Clintons of "injecting" race into the campaign. They also, to a lesser degree, are accusing Obama of accusing the Clintons of "injecting" race into the campaign.

In fact, it is the press who has brought race into this campaign and it didn't happen just this week. For more than a year, they have been talking about Obama's race and what impact that would have in this campaign. They've been polling about it. It's been the subject of countless roundtable discussions and debates (often by all-white panels). It's been on the crawl. It's been the topic of entire segments. It's been the subject of cover stories in every major news magazine and front page stories in every major newspaper. As of today, a Google search of "Is America Ready for a Black President" yields 25,200 hits.

Yet now that the race is essentially boiling down to a contest between two people (sorry Edwards' people - not saying that it's right, just saying it is), and those two people happen to be of different races, the press is pretending that the discussion of race in this campaign has been the result of something that Bill Clinton said a few days ago.

Bullshit.

And even worse, they are wrongly accusing the Clintons of manipulating race when they've done no such thing, and accusing Obama of accusing the Clintons of exploiting race, when he's done no such thing either.

Interesting, the "journalists" are the same people who, for years, not only ignore REAL attempts injection of race into politics, they have DEFENDED it. When Bill Bennett claimed that crime would be reduced if black babies were aborted, they defended him - and accused those of us who criticized him of "playing the race card." When Republicans viciously manipulate race in political campaigns and in their governance, they look the other way - and accuse anyone who questions them on it of "playing the race card." When those people do such things, using coded language, the media beat up on those of us who know how to decode such language, accusing us of parsing their words, insisting they mean something they didn't say and, of course, "playing the race card." Until now, unless a Republican called a black person the n-word on national television, any suggestion that they might be less than sensitive on race brought cries of "there you go again, playing the race card."

But now, all of a sudden, because Bill and Hillary Clinton - two of the most racially progressive people in American life - have been critical of Barack Obama, who happens to be black, the media is accusing them of manipulating race. And, even though Obama has NOT accused the Clintons of doing this, the press is falsely claiming that he is saying that the Clintons are doing this. They say this even though neither the Clintons nor Obama are doing or saying anything markedly different than they've been doing or saying for months.

The media is not the least bit interested in addressing any real issues related to race. They still refuse to call the Republicans on THEIR racial issues. For example, they are consistently analyzing and discussing why more black people are supporting Obama, as if it's proof of racial hostility toward Clinton or of a problem that Clinton has with black people. But when was the last time they actually analyzed or discussed - more than as a passing reference - why hardly any black people at all support ANY Republican? THAT's a discussion I want to hear - but it's a discussion they won't have because that would mean: 1) doing more than throw around easy buzzwords and shallow commentary; 2) the possibility that Republicans would actually be exposed as tolerating and advancing bigotry to a degree exponentially greater than anything the media is accusing the Clintons of doing; and 3) the elimination of the "Democratic Racial Fault Line Threatens to Break Wide Apart" theme that so much of the media are hysterically and irresponsibly hyping.

Please people, don't fall for this. Obama people - please don't buy the media lie that the Clintons are trying to split the party along racial lines. Clinton people - please don't buy the media spin that Obama is falsely Clintons of trying to undermine him based on race.

It is the media that is trying to manipulate all of us. They needed a new story line and they looked at the race of the frontrunners and came up with one: "He's black. She's white. They're clashing. It must be a racial divide." It is cynical and dangerous.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who sees this!

and it was sold as "morning in america," "hope and optimism," etc, by "journalists." that evil bastard was morphed into some kindly uncle by the media. fuck them for all of it.

And I can't believe how many people are falling for the media spin.