Race Card

04 August 2008 |permalink | email article

John McCain thinks ads like linking Barack Obama with Britney and Paris Hilton are funny. “I kind of enjoy ‘em. You gotta have a sense of humor in this.”

But when Obama warned voters against attacks that he looks different from the presidents on U.S. currency, the McCain campaign went nuts and accused him of playing “the race card.”

On “Meet the Press,” as I predicted Saturday, moderator Tom Brokaw repeatedly stepped in as McCain acolyte Joe Lieberman insisted that Obama played the card while John Kerry said his candidate had not injected the issue into the campaign.

Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” Lindsey Graham, another McCain acolyte, commented that “to say that Barack Obama did not intentionally inject of the idea of his name and his race is a lie.”

Former Senate Majority leader Tom Daschle, on the same program, also rejected the accusation and said Obama was referring himself as a “different kind of leader.”

Here’s the defining quote from Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Florida), given Thursday to ABC News, which makes remarks by McCain boosters Lieberman and Graham appear foolish:

“I think we should be in a post-racial environment,” said Martinez, a supporter of McCain. “I think Sen. [Obama] has done an admirable job of that. I don’t think he has race-baited. I think he has been very good about that.”

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