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on this site in recent months we’ve had lively debates over the extent to which the sean bell verdict was a racial episode, and over the racial identity of the geico caveman. for some reason, race seems to be the one issue we almost always find something to argue about.

but can we agree that this crosses a line?

“I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,” she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article “that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”

“There’s a pattern emerging here,” she said.

without going into full-on egghead ivory-tower academic mode, isn’t the subtext here that “real americans” don’t want a black president, and hillary clinton is okay with that?

as i’ve said before, i think barack obama has done a fine job of articulating the reasons behind many black americans’ receptiveness to remarks like the now-infamous ones by rev. wright. but here’s a much more succinct explanation:

Three detectives were found not guilty Friday on all charges in the shooting death of Sean Bell, who died in a hail of 50 police bullets outside a club in Jamaica, Queens, in November 2006.
…
“The people have not proved beyond a reasonable doubt” that each defendant was not justified in shooting, the judge said, quickly adding that the men were not guilty of all of the eight counts, five felonies and three misdemeanors against them.

…and yet, every time i turn on the TV i see white faces wearing puzzled expressions, voicing shock and disbelief at the idea that a jeremiah wright or an al sharpton could feel the way he feels and say the things he says. is it really that hard to grasp? honestly, is it just too much intellectual effort to disagree with the “god damn america” sentiment and still admit some inkling of where it comes from? this isn’t rocket science, white people.

with justice like this, what’s remarkable is that black folks in this country are not walking around in a constant state of outrage and despair.

this is such a transparent good cop/bad cop ploy. the GOP continues flogging the jeremiah wright meme while straight-shooting john mccain pretends to be above the mudslinging, and subservient political reporters are only too happy to let him have it both ways:

Amid Negative Ads, McCain Claims High Road

“For 20 years, Barack Obama sat in his pew, listening to his pastor,” an announcer says as the ad opens. That controversial pastor, Jeremiah Wright, then appears onscreen, saying, “No, no, no. Not God Bless America. God Damn America!” (The ad, which you can watch here, has been called “misleading,” since, according to Obama, he was not sitting in his pew when this particular sermon was delivered.)

Presumptive GOP nominee John McCain, who has pledged to run a “respectful campaign,” quickly condemned the ad. He suggested in a letter to the state party chair, which was released to the media, that the spot “degrades our civics and distracts us from the very real differences we have with the Democrats.”

it’s win-win-win for republicans. the scurrilous anti-obama message still gets through to the mouthbreathing constituency for whom it was always intended. meanwhile, right-leaning voters with more highminded pretensions — who were never going to go for obama in the first place, but were never completely comfortable with the race-baiting tactics either — swoon over the old-school classiness of john mccain, who scores maverick points for ostensibly bucking his party (wink-wink) once again.

for its part, the republican party is thinking ahead to november and thrilled to have hillary clinton’s help in tarnishing the likely democratic nominee. but if all the poop-flinging should ultimately help clinton get the nod, so much the better — that the republicans would much rather run against hillary than barack is the biggest open secret in politics.

it’s painfully obvious that the national media are too complacent, or too much infatuated with BBQ john, or just too fucking dumb to put it all together. here’s hoping the democratic superdelegates are not.