AP plays race card for Obama

Below in italics are parts of the AP’s “analysis” (“Palin's words carry racial tinge”) of Gov. Palin’s remarks yesterday concerning the Ayers-Obama relationship. My comments are interspersed in plain.

WASHINGTON (AP) - By claiming that Democrat Barack Obama is "palling around with terrorists" and doesn't see the U.S. like other Americans, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin targeted key goals for a faltering campaign.

And though she may have scored a political hit each time, her attack was unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret. …

I don’t know whether the McCain campaign has brought the Ayers-Obama relationship to the fore now because his campaign has faltered these past few weeks.

I suspect the AP’s “analyst,” Douglass Daniel, doesn’t know either. He provides nothing to indicate he does.

But if you’re writing a smear-piece targeting McCain-Palin, what AP editor is going to ask you for facts. It's enough that suggesting Palin’s mentioning Ayers yesterday had to do with “a faltering campaign” serves Daniel’s and the AP's purpose.

Contrary to what Daniel indicates, there’s actually a great deal of substantiation of Sen. Obama’s ties to unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers. See, for example, Stanley Kurtz’s WSJ op-ed "Obama and Ayers Pushed Radicalism On Schools."

Daniel’s “analysis” doesn’t get into any of the Ayers-Obama documentation Kurtz and others have provided.

Judging by Daniel’s “analysis,” you would think he doesn't know much about Obama’s long-term and revealing relationship with Ayers. Daniel doesn’t even tell readers Ayers is an unrepentant terrorist.

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?

Is there another subtext? Sure. Lots of them. But what does that matter to Daniel and the AP? His smear-piece is just about playing the race card to help Obama deal with his Ayers problems.

So talk about Palin's words not being "overt racism." That will prompt readers to wonder whether Palin's words are somehow subtly racist.

Then ask rhetorically whether there can be any other interpretation of Palin's remarks than that they are racist?

And it's all done by Daniel imputing to Palin a motive he doesn't know whether she has, but is happy to smear her as having.

Meet Douglass Daniel, the very model of an Obama Tank Corps journalist.

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's assertion Americans view terrorists “as dark-skinned radical Muslims” is bosh.

He's so far from truth in his "analysis" he didn't take account of our knowing unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers is WHITE as is his unrepentant terrorist wife Bernardine Dohrn.

Most of Ayers fellow terrorists in the Weather Underground were white as was Oklahoma City terrorist bomber Timothy McVeigh and as is abortion clinic terrorist bomber Eric Rudolph?

Almost all Americans know terrorists come in every skin color from white to black.

Daniel’s assertion of how we envision terrorists is, like his “analysis,” more projection of what’s on his mind than what’s on the minds of the McCain-Palin team and what’s on our minds.

Daniel and the AP should be ashamed of themselves for playing the race card.

But you know they won’t be.

The entire smear-piece is here.