Obama & MSM playing the 'R' card threadbare?

CNN, believe it or not, has a video of Obama's bomb-throwing buddy Bill Ayers, developed working with National Review Online reporter Stanley Kurtz. Of course, it's racism to link Obama and Ayers.

Is the law of unintended consequences kicking in due to Obama and his enablers in the MSM playing their "R" card until it's threadbare?

Even Barney Frank is hollering "racism!" is behind revelations that he and his Democrat pals helped hatch the Fannie/Freddie meltdown. Last time I checked, Barney is fairly pale and most of the Democrats involved are, too, though there are a few not as pale as Barney.

I was shocked last night by something agreed upon by Fox News panel's pair of liberal twofers, Mora Liason and Juan Williams. They're twofers because they're not only the token liberals for the "fair and balanced" network, Mora fills the female slot and Juan the black slot.

Anyway, both agreed that McCain and Palin should be hammering Obama as much or more for the not-rev. Jeremiah Wright's outrageous anti-American rants as for "palling around" with bomb-throwing Bill Ayers of Chicago. They both reasoned that Bill's bomb-throwing days are in the distant past while Wright's "G-- D--- America!" shouts are still with us on youbute waiting to be replayed on the campaign trail.

Are Mora and Juan trying to set up McCain and Palin for the inevitable racism charges from the MSM if they bring up Wright, I wondered?

Or were they seriously honest? Has the racism card been played so often already in this campaign that its effectiveness had been lost? Why else would a black male liberal and a white female liberal, both NPR "experts," agree that connecting Wright to Obama is fair game?

Associated Press "Analysis" writer Douglass Daniel sees a "racially tinged subtext" in Palin's criticism of Obama's pal, bomb-throwing Bill.

But The Wall Street Journal points out the absurdity of seeing racism in mention of Ayers and his wife, bomb-thrower Bernadine Dohrn.

...Mr. and Mrs. Ayers are persons of pallor. What could possibly be racist about Palin's criticizing Obama for associating with a couple of despicable characters who are white? This question brings us into the weird world of Douglass Daniel's imagination.

Thomas Lifson at American Thinker has also noticed an excess of "one size fits all" flinging of racism charges and he quotes Patterico.

Patterico deftly skewers the ridiculous claims of racism made when Obama is criticized:

• It's racist to point out the connection between Barack Obama and a white man - who happens to be a terrorist.

• It's racist to point out the similarity between Barack Obama and two white women - who are famous for being celebrities.

• It's racist to point out the connection between Barack Obama and a black man - who happens to have run Fannie Mae.

• It's racist to point out the connection between Barack Obama and a black woman - who happens to be his wife, and who said she wasn't really proud of America until her husband was nominated.

Even better, Patterico tells the McCain campaign to wise up, and stop being afraid of being the target of the r-claim. The vast majority of voters understand the tyranny of phony racism claims, and resent them. They may be too afraid to tell pollsters so, but they have seen this sort of nonsense for decades. It is now time for McCain to tell the truth and face down those who racialize ordinary politics.

Like the little boy who cried "Wolf" a few too many times too often, sooner or later the racism card had to wear out. Consider R-Card Exhibit No. 2: O.J. finally went to jail. The glove fit and this time the jury did not acquit. Maybe McCain will trot out Crazy Uncle Jerry.

And maybe, just maybe, there's a method to what some on the right have called McCain's madness for not bringing up Jeremiah Wright.

Charlie Martin at American Thinker asks What if McCain knows what he's doing? Charlie sees a plan in Palin's "late" timing in targeting Ayers, and McCain finally hitting Obama and the Democrats involved in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Could Jeremiah Wright be next up to bat?

Meanwhile, the MSM "whitewash" of Ayers continues, as tonight's debate moderator Tom Brokaw calls modern Bill an "education reformer."

Sol Stern at The City Journal take a current look at what bomb-throwing Bill has been up to in recent times in his ivory tower of academia.

Calling Bill Ayers a school reformer is a bit like calling Joseph Stalin an agricultural reformer. (If you find the metaphor strained, consider that Walter Duranty, the infamous New York Times reporter covering the Soviet Union in the 1930s, did, in fact, depict Stalin as a great land reformer who created happy, productive collective farms.) For instance, at a November 2006 education forum in Caracas, Venezuela, with President Hugo Chávez at his side, Ayers proclaimed his support for “the profound educational reforms under way here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chávez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution. . . . I look forward to seeing how you continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane.” Ayers concluded his speech by declaring that “Venezuela is poised to offer the world a new model of education—a humanizing and revolutionary model whose twin missions are enlightenment and liberation,” and then, as in days of old, raised his fist and chanted: “Viva Presidente Chávez! Viva la Revolucion Bolivariana! Hasta la Victoria Siempre!”

As I have shown in previous articles in City Journal, Ayers’s school reform agenda focuses almost exclusively on the idea of teaching for “social justice” in the classroom. This has nothing to do with the social-justice ideals of the Sermon on the Mount or Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Rather, Ayers and his education school comrades are explicit about the need to indoctrinate public school children with the belief that America is a racist, militarist country and that the capitalist system is inherently unfair and oppressive. As a leader of this growing “reform” movement, Ayers was recently elected vice president for curriculum of the American Education Research Association, the nation’s largest organization of ed school professors and researchers.

If Ayers-style indoctrination of our public-school children is what Obama has in mind when he says "reform," that's far worse than bombs.

And surprise, surprise, guess what Obama says about his campaign kickoff in Ayers' Chicago home? "This is not the Bill Ayers that I knew."

Thomas Sowell is definitely not a "person of pallor," but since he's that rare creature, a black conservative, he knows a lot about racism.

Sowell and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas are routinely called "Uncle Toms" by liberals, who are immune from racism charges.

Sowell blows away the "guilt by association" charges liberals and the MSM use to explain away the questionable characters around Obama.

Associations are very different from alliances. Allies are not just people who happen to be where you are or who happen to be doing the same things you do. You choose allies deliberately for a reason. The kind of allies you choose says something about you.

Jeremiah Wright, Father Michael Pfleger, William Ayers and Antoin Rezko are not just people who happened to be at the same place at the same time as Barack Obama. They are people with whom he chose to ally himself for years, and with some of whom some serious money changed hands.

Some gave political support, and some gave financial support, to Obama's election campaigns, and Obama in turn contributed either his own money or the taxpayers' money to some of them. That is a familiar political alliance-- but an alliance is not just an "association" from being at the same place at the same time.

Obama could have allied himself with all sorts of other people. But, time and again, he allied himself with people who openly expressed their hatred of America. No amount of flags on his campaign platforms this election year can change that.

So let's do a head count. We got a "black liberation" preacher, a white Catholic priest, a white terrorist-turned-"reformer" and a convicted Syrian-Chicago slum lord waiting for sentencing. Racism loop ain't wide enough for that bunch. But they all share a hatred of America.

BTW, speaking of Rezko, federal prosecutors have put off his sentencing because he is reportedly singing like a bird. Obama partisans have been hinting darkly about an "October surprise." I'll bet this is not what they have in mind. Sing Tony sing, sing a sad song about Obama.

BTW 2, like an "I hate America" triple play, James Lewis of American Thinker connects the dots from Obama to Ayers to Jeremiah Wright.

And in slightly hopeful news, two overnight polls show Obama's once double-digit lead over McCain has shrunk to 3. First CBS, now Zogby.