Richard Spencer

March 13, 2008

When Keith Olbermann decided to make a ?special comment? on his MSNBC program regarding Geraldine Ferraro?s pointing out of patently obvious, he really pulled out all the stops?a ?necessary preface,? a quotation from Hamlet, righteous indignation that was stagey and excessive even by Oldermannian standards.

He was also completely wrong when he made his head-liner statement, ?[Clinton] is now campaigning as if Barrack Obama were the Democrat and [Clinton] were the Republican.? 

There is actually no evidence that the Republicans are preparing to really go after Obama as an affirmative action golden boy whose secret to his success is that blacks have voted for one of their own and the media and academic elite have projected all their post-racial hopes and dreams upon him. 

Olbermann, of course, assumes that Republicans are a bunch of crypto-racists who would love to tear Obama down. The reality is that internal documents reveal that McCain is more likely to do a lot of walking on egg shells and pussy footing around so as not to be labeled a ?racist? in an election of ?historic firsts? Perhaps he?ll outsource the tough stuff to an ?attack dog? VP or a loud-mouth on the right—as Scott McConnell suggested in his excellent article for TAC—however, McCain?s repentant, endless apologies after l?affiar Cunninham make me believe that he will disown and denounce any edgy attack on the Illinois senator. 

I don?t think McCain will come anywhere close to this sardonic performance by Hillary when she went on her ?celestial choirs? riff.

McCain won?t even try to equal this?and his supporters on the talk-radio right are going to start getting tired of doing the dirty work for him and then getting repaid with condemnation.

Attacking Obama for being black is certainly out of bounds (not to mention strategically unwise); however, making fun of him for being vacuous and feckless as a legislator is the best tactic for defeating him, as Hillary?s victories in Texas and Ohio prove.

No, in November, McCain will stay above the fray; he?ll talk about that ?transcendent challenge? and the evil that is the earmark.

—Oh, yes, and he?ll also lose.