One Issue, Two Views

By an odd coincidence, two of my favorite (and I mean that) columnists wrote on the same issue today; Bob Herbert at the New York Times and Ruth Ann Dailey at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The issue? Race in Presidential politics.

To Dailey, it's the Democrats who are playing the "race card" (or as she calls it here the "racist card") on the Republicans. Her point is that since there has been nothing racial coming from the Republicans, any complaint or warning about it is itself racist. Her words:

But Sen. John McCain, his allies and the Republican Party as a whole -- despite its disarray and beleaguered mood -- have acted in unity thus far in refusing to utter the words that the Democrats keep trying to shove into their mouths.

So what's going on here? Something pretty despicable, actually. By constantly (and hopefully) claiming the Republicans will play "the race card," the Democrats are playing "the racist card."

It's absolutely necessary to distinguish between the two in this election cycle -- thanks entirely, up until now, to Democratic leaders' regular, and so-far false, accusations. Their strategy is essentially a prolonged smear tactic, propagating the Democrats' historically silly claim to be the party of racial equality.

That's right - notice the qualifiers. The Democrat's "historically" silly claim to be the party of racial equality. As if the Republican party, with Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond is, of course, the REAL party of racial equality.

She has some history to back up her story. She starts with Warren G. Harding.

Both parties have plenty to be ashamed of in their racial histories, though you wouldn't know it from the popular narrative. Democratic operatives were the first to "play the race card," spreading (possibly true) rumors back in 1920 that Republican candidate Warren G. Harding had black ancestors. He won anyway.

Though I'd think that the charge that Thomas Jefferson fathered children with his slaves was an earlier (by more than a hundred years) use of the "race card" but perhaps I am misunderstanding the metaphor.

And I'm not sure bringing up Harding was wise in the first place. Given the corruption of the current administration why remind readers of another Republican administration mired in scandal? Teapot Dome anyone?

She calls on "the general consensus" that McCain is an honorable man who doesn't need to play the "race card." I'd disagree on the honorable part. We've already seen that he's willing to lie about his POW status to pander to Pittsburgh voters. Joe Klein disagrees on the "honorable" part, too:

A few months ago, I wrote that John McCain was an honorable man and he would run an honorable campaign. I was wrong.

So the "general consensus" can't be all that general when a mainstreamer like Joe Klein says he was wrong about John McCain.

Then there's Bob Herbert. First calling the Britney/Hilton ad "slimy" and then unloading on those who refuse to see what's right in front of them:

Gee, I wonder why, if you have a black man running for high public office — say, Barack Obama or Harold Ford — the opposition feels compelled to run low-life political ads featuring tacky, sexually provocative white women who have no connection whatsoever to the black male candidates.

Spare me any more drivel about the high-mindedness of John McCain. You knew something was up back in March when, in his first ad of the general campaign, Mr. McCain had himself touted as “the American president Americans have been waiting for.”

There was nothing subtle about that attempt to position Senator Obama as the Other, a candidate who might technically be American but who remained in some sense foreign, not sufficiently patriotic and certainly not one of us — the “us” being the genuine red-white-and-blue Americans who the ad was aimed at.

They even hit on the "presidents on the dollar bills" remark. Here's Dailey:

When Mr. McCain's campaign accused his opponent of injecting racism into the contest with his "presidents on the dollar bills" remark, Mr. Obama at first scoffed at the suggestion.

But by Friday, chief strategist David Axelrod said his boss was in fact guilty as charged, acknowledging on "Good Morning America" that Mr. Obama's dollar-bill remark referred in part to his race. At a Saturday news conference in Florida, the candidate said the same thing himself, repeating the defense offered by Mr. Axelrod: the remark's main point was that "I don't come out of central casting when it comes to presidential races." Oddly, he told reporters, "None of you thought I was making a racially incendiary remark, or playing the race card." (The Associated Press did not report how the press corps responded to his assumption of their collective absolution.)

And now Herbert:

So there he was this week speaking evenly, and with a touch of humor, to a nearly all-white audience in Missouri. His goal was to reassure his listeners, to let them know he’s not some kind of unpatriotic ogre.

Mr. Obama told them: “What they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He’s risky.”

The audience seemed to appreciate his comments. Mr. Obama was well-received.
But John McCain didn’t appreciate them. RACE CARD! RACE CARD! The McCain camp started bellowing, and it hasn’t stopped since. With great glee bursting through their feigned outrage, the campaign’s operatives and the candidate himself accused Senator Obama of introducing race into the campaign — playing the race card, as they put it, from the very bottom of the deck.

Hmmm. I'll let Herbert sum things up:

Nevertheless, it’s frustrating to watch John McCain calling out Barack Obama on race. Senator Obama has spoken more honestly and thoughtfully about race than any other politician in many years. Senator McCain is the head of a party that has viciously exploited race for political gain for decades.

He’s obviously more than willing to continue that nauseating tradition.

I just don't see how Ruth Ann Dailey has much of an argument against that.