Of presumption and racism

I don't really know if the presumption meme that people keep affixing to Obama is racist. Frankly I don't think it much matters. More importantly, I think Dana Milbank should own up to getting his facts wrong. I also don't get Harold Ford's angle. Why is he giving Obama advice? Didn't he lose? I kind of see the point about Obama needing to lose "the suit" and roll up his sleeves--but then not really. It sounds like the sort of warmed-over consultant-speak we see in the media all the time.

Comments

After reading this post, I've come to the conclusion its going to be like Matt Yglesias never left.

no spell check necessary.

Posted by Seanfucious | July 31, 2008 3:15 PM

I was [just] telling someone what is Harold Ford's deal? You would think if he were as politically astute as he portrays himself to be he would be leading a Senate hearing right now. Thank God for Rachel Maddow.

Posted by Michael | July 31, 2008 3:47 PM

The trope isn't racist per se I think, but shows something about people when they're confronted about it. Almost everything Obama has done over the last couple weeks, McCain has done over the last couple months, but it's being cast as "presumptuous" (when are they going to start complaining about "the next president!" intro?). If you just hear the "presumptuous" reporting and accept it, that's one thing. If you're confronted with "McCain has done pretty much the exact same thing" and still stick to the hard line, you're just looking for a reason to hate Obama. And that, as Maddow said last night, says more about you than it does about Obama.

Posted by Alex | July 31, 2008 4:57 PM

I don't think the "presumptuous" line is racist per se. However, I do wonder about racism in the Britney/Paris ad because there are a lot of other empty "celebrities" they could have chosen. Maybe I'm jaded from years of Lee Atwater, Floyd Brown, and Karl Rove.

Posted by Hannah | July 31, 2008 5:18 PM

Things have gone a lot farther than the Milbank meme. It morphed into the race card today. Why? Because "presumptuos" was too subtle for press corps members less sophisticated than Mr. Misquote Milbank? Here is my take:

My friends, let me weigh in just like I did during the New Yorker cartoon controversy.

IT AIN’T THE RACE CARD, IT AIN’T THE CAMPAIGNS, ITS THE MEDIA.

Yesterday the media manufactured a controversy out of an unsourced Obama quote Dana Milbank of the WaPo twisted into a comment that meant exactly the opposite of what Obama actually said. It became the story of the day for the media sheep who bleated about it all day as if it was a true quote. Obama would have to be as stupid as our pundit corps to have said what Milbank attributed to him. Few people are that dumb. Obama is not one of them.

Today ABC’s Jake Tapper, who once implied Obama was untrustworthy because he smelled what he thought was cigarette smoke on Obama, launched this whole affair at his ABC blog. Check it out. He said something to the effect that Obama’s statements yesterday were racist and xenophobic accusations against McCain. All other networks carried Obama’s comments. None of them made the connection Jake did. He took words Obama said on the campaign stump and placed them as if they were given as an answer to a question Obama was asked about McCain’s ads. Shades of CBS and Katie Couric. Then his ABC colleagues ran over and asked Rick Davis at the McCain campaign for a response to Obama accusing them of racism. This is exactly what ABC did to Obama with the New Yorker cartoon. They kept badgering them until they commented and the story blew up.

You may want to believe this is all the McCain campaign’s doing. It is the press. You need to join me in calling them on it. Tapper dealt the race card. Others played their hands.

Posted by Ricky | July 31, 2008 9:42 PM

I think the "elitist, arrogant, cocky, presumptuous" tag that Obama's political opponents have been trying to hang around his neck since the primaries, are expected to have special resonance because he's black. Just like the unpatriotic, un-American, anti-American, radical, etc... labels are expected to. As has been pointed out before, the presumptuous line, which is just another form of the arrogant/cocky line, plays to the notion of the "uppity nigger"; that black man who doesn't know his place, who's too big for his britches, who's reaching beyond his station, who needs to be put in his place. It's meant to speak to those democrats/independants who are on the fence about Obama, partly because he's black; those who may be considering voting for Obama despite him being black. Whether you call that racist or racial, it's low. Of course, politics is low; what else is new?

Posted by number1Obamaton | August 1, 2008 9:39 AM

I wouldn't call the meme directly racist, but it plays into the whole "great speaker, empty suit" theme that we saw during the primary, the core of which went something like "Obama gives great speeches because he's black and the only thing I've ever seen black people doing successfully is performance (music, comedy, etc), just jumping on stage shuckin' and jivin'...he's just a presumptous, self-centered performer celebrity, like all the blacks I've ever been exposed to in the media."

Posted by Ron Vicente | August 1, 2008 1:13 PM

I'm not sure it's racist, either, but I don't remember 'who does he think he is'? coming up nearly as prominently in reference to George W. Bush, who also sported a pretty thin resume.

Posted by Persia | August 1, 2008 2:50 PM

I have to agree with Ron Vincent, number1obamatron and others, this bundle of recent ads/pundit analysis/outrage over Senator Obama doing things that any normal nominee would do is just allowing an excuse for "normal folks in middle America" to say that young guy is pretty uppity (polite phrasing, of course - unless they get a couple drinks in them).

That's the sort of reaction I've heard up in northern Michigan, and over the weekend in northwest Indiana. It's the old Rove trick of putting something (untrue) out there and then building a tale on it so that the very base ideas can come out from under the rocks. To ignore this and not call it for what it is, risks taking the Kerry above the fray route. Rachel Maddow and that Smerconish fellow were right in calling the McCain campaign out on this tactic (Milbank too). SOmebody has to stand up and call it what it is. A black person who does so risks getting called out for playing the "race card". Thankfully Maddow & Smerconish lableled the tactic for what it is. It would be nice if others (politicians & media) would do the same.

Posted by JT (Chicago) | August 1, 2008 2:56 PM

You expect ABC to label the tactic for what it is? They are the ones fanning the flames. If you sent in an on line post critical of them for starting the whole race card nonsense they delete it. So as an experiement I sent this one. It does not get deleted. They are proud of themselves.

"ABC deserves all the credit for this turn of events and you should trumpet how you broke the news.The key phrase is this article is : "The strong words from the McCain campaign came after Obama seemed to suggest during a couple of campaign stops in Missouri on Wednesday that the GOP was preparing to make an issue of his Muslim middle name and race, which turned some McCain insiders livid." Now, who was it that interpreted what anyone who watches the footage of Obama can see is a good natured joke about his "not looking like the Presidents on the dollar bills," into "seemed to suggest" thatthe "GOP was Preparing" to make race an issue? Why ABC News in their blogs and on line articles starting yesterday morning before McCain's campaign even reacted. SEEMED TO SUGGEST. Search the coverage yesterday and I think you will find this suggestion started with this network. You should be proud of your role and claim credit."

Their censors do not detect sarcasm.

Posted by Ricky | August 1, 2008 4:00 PM