By Patrick Appel
Andrew Romano writes:
McCain's previous silence proves that when playing the "playing the race card" card, the impression you create--an impression of your rival saying something racially outrageous that benefits you politically--is far more important than whether or not you actually think he said something racially outrageous. In this case, I don't believe that's what Obama did--and judging by June 21, neither does McCain. But unlike whoever was running the show back then, new head honcho Steve Schmidt--a pugilistic Karl Rove protégé--seems to have decided that it benefits his boss to give voters the impression that Obama is the type of person who "plays the race card" (even though Obama strenuously, and necessarily, avoids doing so). And that's what's unsettling about this incident. If Schmidt and Co. were worried, as they say, that Obama was trying frame any "conventional campaign attacks as race-based" and were merely seeking to pre-empt his efforts, they could've simply said "we've never played the race card and we never will." But instead they lashed out. In playing offense instead of defense, Team McCain is actively characterizing Obama as another Al Sharpton--a "divisive, negative" Black Politician with vocal grievances who uses race as both shield and sword. This strikes me as too convenient to dismiss as a coincidence.