Up early again - watching Morning Jo(k)e and at first I thought it was just them, but then I checked around and sure enough there are a lot of mainstream media types, Republican commentators, and now even some regular bloggers who are second-guessing Hillary's speech last night.
They seem to be coming from two directions.
One group doesn't like Obama and will do anything to defeat him. This group includes PUMA types, Republicans and commentators like Pat Buchanan and Joe Scarborough, who have had nothing positive to say about anything at the convention, and they are attacking Obama as reponsible for everything that they find lacking. You hear them say the speakers are weak. The convention is too easy on McCain. Michelle Obama wasn't soft enough or Hillary should have been the nominee. The Democrats are having "buyer's remorse."
The other group includes Hillary haters and those who don't trust the Clintons. All week they've been saying Hillary is planning her run in 2012. She'll do what she has to do, but no more. She has a secret agenda and behind the scenes she is signaling her supporters to keep her dream alive and reject Obama.
Increasingly, I see in all of this a subtle racism. There are just too many people in this country and in this party who do not want to let a black man become president. Why do I say this? Because there have been two white men who became president in my lifetime who were younger than Barack, who did a good job as president, who were no more qualified to be commander in chief than Obama, and yet they were accepted and embraced by their party. There was no palace intrigue to destroy them before they even finished their convention - not by an opponent and not by the media.
Barack has so much to overcome that no white candidate would ever have to overcome - and the reality is that the Clintons have participated in setting that higher bar. They have allowed rumors to float around for months that they despise Barack and want him defeated. They have not stopped the PUMA nonsense and they have not yet condemned McCain for using Hillary in his ads. Maybe they will over the next few days and weeks. Or maybe Hillary is playing it smart and externally supporting Barack, but sending covert signals to her supporters not to support him. Or maybe most of her supporters will come along and the media is simply creating a big story. How can anyone know? No one can be trusted anymore - not the Clintons, not the media, not the pundits, and certainly not the Republicans.
I honestly don't think there would be this much effort to condemn Obama if he were white. Let's remember. The media has always hated the Clintons, especially Hillary. And now they're praising her? Could it be, perhaps, that they are all bigots, their fear of a black president trumping their hatred of the woman in the pantsuit who has such contempt for them?
More and more it looks like that to me. Barack is facing obstacles no white candidate would ever face, and if he can overcome them and win anyway, it will be a victory like no other victory I have seen in my lifetime.
I think he can do it, but it is looking like he will have to both wage a political campaign and conduct a new civil rights battle all at the same time. That may be asking too much, even for someone as talented as Obama.
