Obama continued: "And so the only way they figure they’re going to win this election is if they make you scared of me. So what they’re saying is, ‘Well, we know we’re not very good but you can’t risk electing Obama. You know, he’s new, he’s... doesn’t look like the other presidents on the currency, you know, he’s got a, he’s got a funny name.'
Correct me if I'm wrong, but does it not seem as if Obama just said McCain and his campaign -- presumably the "they" in this construct -- are saying that Obama shouldn't be elected because he's a risk because he's black and has a foreign-sounding name?
The Obama campaign says no, no, no, certainly not, he was talking about his "opponents" in general, writ large, the talk radio hosts and smear artists and such.
Then in Union, Mo., this evening, Obama seemed to specifically accuse McCain and the GOP of peddling racism and xenophobia.
Obama said that "John McCain and the Republicans, they don’t have any new ideas, that’s why they’re spending all their time talking about me. I mean, you haven’t heard a positive thing out of that campaign in ... in a month. All they do is try to run me down and you know, you know this in your own life. If somebody doesn’t have anything nice to say about anybody, that means they’ve got some problems of their own. So they know they’ve got no new ideas, they know they’re dredging up all the stale old stuff they’ve been peddling for the last eight, 10 years.
"But, since they don’t have any new ideas the only strategy they’ve got in this election is to try to scare you about me. They’re going to try to say that I’m a risky guy, they’re going to try to say, 'Well, you know, he’s got a funny name and he doesn’t look like all the presidents on the dollar bills and the five dollar bills and, and they’re going to send out nasty emails.
There's a lot of racist xenophobic crap out there. But not only has McCain not peddled any of it, he's condemned it.
Back in February, McCain apologized for some questionable comments made by a local radio host. In April, he condemned the North Carolina Republican Party's ad featuring images of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
While I have no doubt there will be a bunch more racist, xenophobic, and other ignorant drek coming our way courtesy of the Internet and perhaps the occasional cable news network, it's important to determine where it's coming from. Is it from a specific campaign or party? A third-party group? A third-party group with direct ties to establishment figures? This all matters.
I've seen racism in campaigns before -- I've seen it against Obama in this campaign (more from Democrats than Republicans, at this point, I might add) and I've seen it against McCain in South Carolina in 2000, when his adopted Bangladeshi daughter Bridget was alleged, by the charming friends and allies of then-Gov. George W. Bush, to have been a McCain love-child with an African-American woman.
What I have not seen is it come from McCain or his campaign in such a way to merit the language Obama used today. Pretty inflammatory.
Read the whole thing here.
Instapundit looks at the situation a little differently. He and his readers examine yet another Obama gaffe:
Democrat Barack Obama, the first black candidate with a shot at winning the White House, says John McCain and his Republican allies will try to scare them by saying Obama "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."
Er, all those other presidents? Isn't there just one President on the dollar bill?
UPDATE: A reader emails:
Not only is there only 1 president on the $1.00 bill, but assuming he meant currency in general, he might want to look at the $10 and $100 which do not feature any U.S. President. Perhaps he spoke..."inartfully" again.
That keeps happening. And another reader emails: "Isn't the gaffe '*other* presidents'; again he thinks he's already president." Heh. I'd missed that.
On the other hand, reader David Sette emails: "From the quote I read, it is clear he's talking about bills, plural. As is the 1, 5, 20, 50 etc. Hardly a gaffe." I don't know, it seems quite comparable to the "Bushisms" that people have been pointing out for years as evidence that our current President isn't very bright. Yes, those features are kind of lame, but sauce for the goose, etc. . . .
MORE: Okay, what's really weird is that Obama just said the same thing about himself, in Berlin:
I know that I don’t look like the other Americans who’ve previously spoken in this great city.
So who's the one raising these racial issues, again?
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