Wright and Horton

This year Jeremiah Wright will be playing the role of Willie Horton. He's the angry black man that voters are supposed to be afraid of. Seriously. History repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce.

But all he has to do is put a metaphorical afro on Obama. Older, white, workingclass, Catholic voters--or some of em--will remember Obama's a black man and freak, or at least look enough like they're freaking to authorize the party's thumbsucking on "electability."

I agree with those who say that Clinton is a victim of sexism as much as or more than Obama is a victim of racism. By the same measure, gender "divisiveness" is an "electability" issue as much as racial "divisiveness." Why has there been no discussion of gender and electability? I mean, there's plenty of it in the blogosphere's id: google "Clinton" and "c**t," for instance. In the commentariat, though, the entire issue is missing. I'm happy about that. I don't think it belongs on stage. The reason why it's missing, I'm betting, is that no campaign is putting it out there. Political reporters hate to drive the agenda.

Will Rev Wright go away? If I were, say, Fox News, I'd give him his own show. But then people would probably stop paying attention to him.

None Dare Call It

Racism. In the days since the PA primary, the news has been full of exit poll results that show a group of democratic voters who say "race is an important issue" (18% of them) and, among them, a group of around 40% who say they will not vote for Obama if elected. Now if you factor in some self-falsification--in deference to the common supposition that you're not supposed to admit to being a racist--it would be safe to conclude that about 10% of total voters, or close to 20% of Clinton's supporters, in Pennsylvania are in fact classic white racists. This is not a surprise.

The analyses of exit polls are pretty much in unison on the basic contours of this racist bloc. They are overwhelmingly older, disproportionately Catholic, and mostly working class. Having grown up in Ohio, I know a lot of people who fit this description, and am related to more than a few by blood and marriage. They don't wear the hood, don't burn crosses, and don't chase black folk out of their neighborhoods (though few black folk live there anyway). They consider black folk different, don't like them, and don't want them running the show. Just because they're black. This is racism; I have no trouble calling it that.

So why do the mainstream media? Read through the reporting on race post-PA, and you won't find the word racism or racist. Instead, you'll find a kind of furious campaign on the part of everyone to deny "playing the race card."

Race has always been metaphysical in the US--there's no such thing, if by race you mean biological difference. Racism, however, has never been metaphysical. It's always been a material set of practices. Sometimes its explicit and sometimes it's not. Since 1965 or so, it's always manifested itself in politics under some kind of disguise--the confederate flag, or the campaign against public schools or affirmative action. In democratic party politics today, racism hides behind the word "electability." Why can't Obama close the deal? Because he can't win white, Catholic, older workingclass voters.

It's all about race. But isn't it really all about racism?

Apologizing for Telling the Truth

Twice this past week or so Obama supporters have had to apologize for telling the truth about McCain. Last Friday talk show host Ed Schultz called McCain a "warmonger." The Obama campaign repudiated the remark, and repeated its line that it honors McCain's service to the country and considers him a genuine hero. The yesterday Jay Rockefeller pointed out that McCain's war service was actually not that sweet a line of work:

McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit.What happened when they [the missiles] get to the ground? He doesn't know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues."

OK, isn't this true? Ought we not put him back in the cockpit and ask him what it was that he thought he was doing there? Instead, we get an apology from Rockefeller and a reiteration of the "honor the hero's service" line from the Obama campaign. Hasn't McCain in fact supported every use of military force since he's been in the Senate? And didn't he in fact call for a substantial commitment of ground troops in Kosovo? Sure, he hates war. I don't doubt that. He especially hates losing wars, and is mortified that he's been an instrument in the two grandest military failures in US history. But let the record speak for itself.

On this point, where's the press? Has anyone in the national media investigated the truth of either of these claims? That's what journalists are for. Journalists should be writing detailed assessments of McCain's military service in the context of the Vietnam War. They should be demystifying the memory of the air war and examining the circumstances of McCain's capture and imprisonment. They might, too, if some well organized Swift Boat crew starts running ads that gain attention, or if the Obama campaign gets off its "hero" talking points, or if Clinton's campaign decides to do something risky for a change.

Instead of showing initiative and enterprise, the campaign press has treated such issues as debates over campaign decorum. So Ed Schultz is framed as the Democratic equivalent of talk show host Bill Cunningham, whom McCain repudiated for overuse of Obama's middle name. And calling McCain a warmonger is treated as the moral equivalent of race-baiting. Peace-baiting? Well that's an idea whose time has come.