Playing the Race Card Against Obama By Eugene Robinson

Posted on Jan 15, 2008
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080115_playing_the_race_card_against_obama/

WASHINGTON—It turns out that Toni Morrison’s famous line about Bill Clinton as “our first black president” was just a bon mot. If the Clintons took it as a sign of African-Americans’ unconditional fealty, they were mistaken.

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that black Democrats nationwide now support Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton for the presidential nomination by nearly 2 to 1. This striking reversal—a month ago, Clinton held a big lead among African-Americans—is perhaps why race has suddenly become such a hot issue in a campaign that previously had dodged the subject.

It was never realistic to think that race—or gender, for that matter—would stay out of a contest starring the first woman and the first African-American with realistic hopes of becoming president. From the Democrats’ point of view, it’s probably better to hash all this out now rather than wait until the general election campaign, when the Republican Swift-boat machine would set the parameters and tone for the discussion.

Still, it’s surprising that the Clinton campaign has been so aggressive in keeping the race issue alive. On “Meet the Press,” Clinton didn’t just seek to explain her remarks about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s role in landmark civil rights legislation (she said it took a president to bring about real action) or Bill’s “fairy tale” crack about Obama’s record on the Iraq War (which some African-Americans took as a dismissal of Obama’s candidacy as mere fantasy). Instead, she went on the attack, accusing the Obama campaign of “deliberately distorting” her words in a way that was “unfair and unwarranted.”

them out of context.
He and Bob Herbert are doing Obama no favors by continuing to push this crap.

contributing to keeping the controversy alive. Like all "pundits," he has to find something to write about.