Is Something Sinister In McCain Attacks On Obama?

There was never any chance that it would be a placid affair, a presidential race free of mud-slinging and shabby attack ads. It will surprise only the political naif that Sen. John McCain’s promised campaign of high-mindedness is entirely dependent on favorable polling data, or that Sen. Barack Obama’s platitudinous calls for “hope” and “change,” his admonition that we must knock down “walls” and erect “bridges,” are tactfully short on specifics.

But it is with a certain amount of puzzlement that many observers have watched the issue of race injected into the campaign. Last week, after the McCain team released two seemingly innocuous, though pointed, advertisements — one accusing their opponent of vapidity, the other of messianism — a steady stream of mainstream, Obama-friendly commentators and bloggers cried foul. In a video titled “Celeb,” McCain juxtaposed Obama with famous paparazzi quarry Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. To most, the message was clear, if a little ham-handed: Like Hilton and Spears, Obama is famous for being famous; he's more flash than substance.

But was there a deeper message? In the past week and a half, the liberal blogosphere has become a virtual Bletchley Park of racial cryptographers teasing out the sinister motives and subtexts of McCain’s campaign advertising.
Find it at the Politico.