The idea of "Obama not seeing the country the way you and I see it..." is by all intents and purposes labeling him as an "other." That is, he is "different" from the way of the "majority." And while it is not overtly racist, it does, however, reinforce the racial fear within those who are hesitant to vote for Obama because of the color of his skin in the first place.

At his big rally today, McCain said his line: "Who is Barack Obama?"
A crowd member shouted out in response: "A Terrorist!" The rest of the crowd reacted with cheers.

Although McCain looked sad at that response, he didn't correct it, or say anything since to try and dispel the notion. In fact he continued his stump speech, linking Obama to terrorists and corrupt black officials in the most tenuous ways, while suggesting his opponent was un-American and "not like us".

McCain hired the Rovian operatives he despised in 2000, those that used racist (McCain's got a black baby) attacks against him. Now he's repeating those operatives' lines. In his desperate bid for power, he's succumbed to all he scorned.

Oh, I definitely see hints of racism--as much as they dare get away with it--in their campaigning. I just didn't see the racism in that specific remark. It seems a bit of a stretch to go from "He doesn't see America like we do..." to "HE'S BLACK DON'T VOTE FOR HIM". Especially considering the context (talking about ties to domestic terrorism, not race).

Remarks needn't be so obvious to be racist. Paraphrasing Jonathan Rauch, if words such as "kike" and "jew" aren't allowed to be used, then the antagonist can just as easily use words such as "lamp" and "oven." The ways in which people express prejudice is potentially as large as the dictionary.

Guess I should say Jonathan Rauch is Jewish and that paraphrasing was from his article "In Defense of Prejudice."

The Washington Post reports on a similar moment at a Palin rally today:

"Now it turns out, one of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," Palin said.

"Boooo!" said the crowd.

"And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,'" she continued.

"Boooo!" the crowd repeated.

"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.

...

Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

...

She doesn't have to outwardly say that he's a terrorist or that he's a scary black/Muslim man, she knows her supporters ("the base") can connect the dots. They are. And I'm afraid what the final picture is gonna look like as she and McCain keep adding dots and their supporters continue to connect them, and connect them to the chain emails and the hate spewed on talk radio. We may not have gotten the convention riots of 68 but we may get at least one repeat of 68 if Obama gets elected. If he even lives that long.

win-win for mccain

I think Keith will have years more of rant material and increasing ratings. And Tina Fey will buy a new house from President Palin.

If McCain wins Keith's ratings will be ensured for the next four years. Shoot himself? He'll probably be able to buy a yacht made of diamonds.

A lot of times in these things you can hear the floor crew cracking up, so he's probably pretending that when they are laughing they are actually dying a little inside.

flowers

man, I want to like Olbermann so badly.

HUH???
This comment is either really stupid or really profound...
Either way I'll be thinking about it for the rest of my life.