Yes. Really. The American left has pushed all its chips into the middle on this one. The negative side effect will either be losing the election for Obama or losing the ability to claim racism with any effectiveness for the rest of eternity. How are the leftist lawyers going to convince jurors that someone suffered from racism when half the jury pool has been told they are racists when they aren't? How are they going to convince people that blacks need preferences to get into college in order to overcome racism, when everyone knows they cry racism over every issue that is raised? Is the Obamessiah really worth that much to the lefties that they are willing to blow all credibility on issues of racism? Apparently.
Over the weekend Sarah Palin accused Barack Obama of "palling around" with terrorists--a reference to his longstanding friendship and professional association with Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, husband-and-wife Chicago college professors who are unrepentant about their activities in the Weather Underground gang.
According to an "analysis" by Douglass Daniel of the Associated Press, "[Palin's] attack was unsubstantiated." Palin said she got her information from the New York Times, and we suppose it says something that this isn't good enough for the AP. Odder still is Daniel's claim that Palin's statement "carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret."
Reader, Mr. and Mrs. Ayers are persons of pallor. What could possibly be racist about Palin's criticizing Obama for associating with a couple of despicable characters who are white? This question brings us into the weird world of Douglass Daniel's imagination:
Palin's words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism. But is there another subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee "palling around" with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he doesn't see their America?
In a post-Sept. 11 America, terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims, not the homegrown anarchists of Ayers' day 40 years ago. With Obama a relative unknown when he began his campaign, the Internet hummed with false e-mails about ties to radical Islam of a foreign-born candidate.
Daniel does no reporting to back this up. He accuses Palin of racism because in his mind, terrorist implies Muslim, Muslim implies dark-skinned, and dark-skinned implies black.
This exercise in free association scarcely qualifies as analysis. Nonetheless, let us consider it step by step:
Terrorist implies Muslim. It is certainly true that America's terrorist enemies today are Muslims who justify their actions in Islamic terms. The terrorist fringe of the 1960s far left, by contrast, has withered away (or "sold out," in the parlance of the times). But there is nothing distinctively Islamic about tactics like bombing and kidnapping, which were used by outfits like the Weather Underground in their time and are employed by al Qaeda and its ilk today.
Moreover, as we have noted, the AP is sometimes at pains to avoid drawing a connection between terrorism and Islam when reporting stories about Islamic terrorism. Why does Daniel make the connection so casually here, when it is not even relevant?
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