Playing The Race Card

Talk about cynical!

The McCain crowd has disgraced itself. It has spent valuable time and money purposefully crafting race-based ads aimed at creating doubt about Sen. Barack Obama's fitness to be president.

In an artless, tasteless TV ad, the two most instantly recognizable white chicks in the world (Britney Spears, Paris Hilton) are flashed onto the TV screen moments before images of Sen. Obama and adoring crowds on his recent European tour appear.

The intended message? Depends on who you are and what you've experienced as to how you see it.

For my part, I see a nasty, inept effort to portray Sen. Obama as one whose celebrity is wrongly conferred--like that of the two blonde sexpots who bring little to the table but good looks, brashness and questionable, unearned wealth and fame.

By contrast, an African American male commentator on MSNBC earlier today gave an entirely different explanation. Presumably one who's long accustomed to hearing whites and blacks alike make disparaging comments about relationships between black men and white women (and vice versa), the commentator saw the ad as being about THAT--a way of telling conservative voters, black OR white, that Obama--like the two blondes in the commercial (a) has sex appeal that attracts persons outside his own race, and (b) is a threat to black AND white men because of it.

Regardless of how one's race or gender prepares one to see the McCain camp's ad, the point remains: it is disgraceful and speaks volumes about the depths to which a cynical, behind-in-the-polls presidential candidate will go to inherit the mess that is currently America.

Finally, here's the best indication that the race card was played cynically and purposefully by the McCain crowd: they're crowing this weekend about what a good week they had in knocking Sen. Obama off his pedestal and off his message.

In short, they count it huge that their opponent had to deal with an ugly topic like "race" after being globally extolled as a Citizen of the Planet in Europe and the Middle East last week.

Cynical to the max. Don't you hate it? I do.