Well, I'll assume the most probable explanation is that Cuomo was just being a dope, and this has nothing to do with him feeling "authorized" to do anything.

But if there is indeed an actual strategy here among Obama's opponents, it could be something like this: If you drop offensive comments like this every now and then, you are automatically going to draw out black leaders to form the usual sort of response patrol calling for retractions, apologies, firings etc. And you can count on purveyors such as FOX to find the most shrill and intemperate of these figures. In the minds of white voters, this will more closely associate Obama - a black leader that many white voters do like - with other black leaders whom some white voters tend not to like quite so much.

It can also put Obama in a series of uncomfortable positions. Some white pol or media personality makes an offensive crack; some extreme black leader or attention-seeking black celebrity rushes to his defense, and in the process crosses the line into what some might regard as anti-white racism; Obama is then put in the position of having to choose a side, and in the process alienate some voters.

This is an interesting issue, because it is like a lesson on how differently whites and blacks see things, or especially how they use language.  It seems clear that Cuomo, whether or not he was authorized by the Clintons, and whether or not he didn't specifically refer to Obama, chose language that was meant to provoke a certain association in the minds of white voters.  It was definitely deliberate. How could it not be? How many times have you heard someone outside of a racial context refer to "shuck and jive."

But I am getting the sense that a lot of other things that people have said or written are being perceived as racial politics when they may not have been.  At the very least, I think Obama supporters are often inferring racism a bit too quickly.  For example, several articles have noted Obama's fondness for basketball.  Others have said he can be "lazy" on the campaign trail.  Are these deliberate provocations the way Cuomo's comment appears to be?  Maybe or maybe not.  For me, the story that takes the cake is the one about James Clyburn, the South Carolina politician who is now supporting Obama because Hillary Clinton supposedly dissed the civil rights movement (which she didn't actually do, if you listened to what she said).  Is Hillary Clinton appealing to racial bias because she noted the important role of Lyndon Johnson in achieving black equality? 

The episode that was certainly an education for me was the Biden comment a few months ago where he referred to Obama as "articulate".  Apparently, blacks consider it patronizing and condescending whenever a white person refers to a black person as articulate, the feeling being that to make special note of a black person's verbal abilities is to note also how unusual they are.  I am sure that most whites who have said Obama is articulate are genuinely expressing an opinion as Obama is articulate by any standard.  But there's no getting around the fact that black objections to the use of that word are rooted in real feelings.

Like the OJ trial, its an interesting moment in racial history.

OT

Hilarious!
Bill Maher’s first show back for 2008.

Tony Snow confuses “Voter Fraud”with “Election Fraud”

http://tinyurl.com/27zrol

Is it possible that you can be anymore disengenuous than you are with this post? Can you manipulate and work the readers as the rubes you obviously think we are anymore than with this post?

If Coumo's a hidden racist then so is "Mother Jones" with their Dec. 1979 article, "Upjohn's Shuck and Jive Routine" or "The Utne Reader" and their June 2007 article "Shuck and Jive, Industry and Politicians and Ethanol" or "The Industry Standard" and their May 00 article "Microsoft's Shuck and Jive" or Jimmy Webb's song, "Mr Shuck and Jive" recorded by everyone from Willie Nelson and Art Garfunkel to Superdrag, and of course the "The Washington Progressive Blog" and the post about George Allen's "shuck and jive" and the restaurant chain, "Shuck and Jive" and Maxi's Restaurant in Ithaca New York and their weekly shuck and jive night, which seems to be popular with oyster bars just about everywhere not to mention "The Guardian" and their March 03 article about Tony Blair's shuck and jive routine.

I'm sure no one has ever heard that phrase who isn't a member of the African American community and Coumo who was commenting on the primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire was subliminally sending a message of the democrats' real hatred and contempt for African Americans emboldened by the Clintons, those closet David Dukes.

Unless you're an idiot, you know full well what Coumo meant, you know full well what Shaheen said and you know full well what both Clintons have said, so stop playing us for fools and stop insulting our intelligence by playing us for rubes who are incapable of reading or discerning meaning.

I am curious to see how this "race" and "gender" issue will play out. The media would love a fight about the she said he said. Distracts from the real issues. Brings us back to the Dems fighting over PC language eyes glaze over and we lose again. What is striking was all the "he is not black enough," about Obama and the uncertainty about his black credentials from the black community stuff we heard a few months ago. Now everything about him is black. Look, if Obama is for change, he will stop all this and focus on the real issue: getting rid of the Republicans and forgetting the gender and race crap for the next few months. Like if the media cares about race or gender unless it can divert from the real issues? The war, the economy, civil liberties and so on. Also I am tired of the gender issue. We have to stay focused. I understand that the race and gender issue are a constant undercurrent, but only if people play into it. And this means, Gloria Steinem, Clyburn etc. They need to take a breath, and bring it back to war, economy, civil liberties, corporatism...etc...etc...

You know , the Obama people need to get off the racial politics. It is a sure fired loser. What Obama had been able to do, so far, was appeal to a broad group of people-- from wine track left wingers to moderate suburban Republicans. Racial politics gives the likes of Al Sharpton a chance to steal his message and change his inclusive message into one aimed toward a group of special radical interests. There are a number of people speaking for him that he needs to tell to STFU and go home.

The NH loss is Obamas first real test of leadership so far IMO he is not passing.

Jack

Surfing between Time magazine's Swampland and TPMCafe, I detect that many Progressives are frustrated when race is brought into the campaign. Obama's campaign is designed to demonstrate that his race, but his qualifications is the primary issue. Thus any concern regarding race is viewed as playing the race-card.
If you consider how MSM works, the concerns stated by Donna Brazile, Rep Clyburn, Roland Martin and others are understandable.
MSM hands out a snippet. Details follow much later. When MSM reported that Obama attended a radical church, there were controversial statements from the Church's website published. To track down the deatils, you had to go to the Church's website, view the Church's positions in their entirety and decide if the Church was indeed radial. Nothing I saw made the institution appear different than those I attended. I had concerns after hearing the initial snippet, but they were alleviated by personal research.
Given the heat of the contest, when one hears to terms "fair tale", "shuck and jive", "imaginary Black friend", and a statement that questions the importance of MLK, more details are needed.
Donna Brazile and Clyburn expressed their disappointment after hearing about the snippets.
No campaign can let these snippets go unanswered. MSM will get a response based on the initial snippet. The faster the response to the snippet, the better.
The campaign can send a message to it's surrogate's to consider how certain words can be interpreted before speaking. For any Democratic candidate the response provides training for the barrage that will come from the GOP.

OK for whiterosebuddy:

Why did I use the example of Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini? To make my point that oratory and leadership qualities cannot in themselves commend us to a candidate. It was not making an analogy at all it was a point in conceptual analysis.
You say why did I not use people with both qualities (oratory skills and leadership) that shared our liberal values? Well because then that would not have made my point would it? My point is that oratory skills and leadership qualities cannot IN AND OF THEMSELVES be indicators of the virtue of a candidate. That point is made by nnoting that both Benito and Adolph had both qualities and were terrible leaders. In what sense whiterosebuddy do you think I'm making an analogy between Barak Obama and Hitler or Mussolini.? It’s a total non sequitur IT JUST DOES NOT FOLLOW. YOU ARE MAKING a bad judgments here.

You are taking it for granted that Obama's substantive positions on issues are those you support and you are doing this based on his oratory skills and leadership qualities.

Let me put it in a deductive form ok:

1) In choosing leaders we cannot rely on their leadership qualities and their oratorical skills alone because people can have those qualities and not be suited for the job.
2) whiterosebuddy relies only on those two qualities as sufficient to commend Obama to us.

therefore whiterosebuddy is not relying on sufficient conditions for making his choice

"Shuck and jive"? here's where that one comes from:

"To shuck and jive" originally referred to the intentionally misleading words and actions that African-Americans would employ in order to deceive racist Euro-Americans in power, both during the period of slavery and afterwards. The expression was documented as being in wide usage in the 1920s, but may have originated much earlier.
snip]
Today, the expression has expanded somewhat from earlier usage, and is now sometimes used to mean "talking pure baloney," "goofing off," or "goofing around." The original meaning of deceit often remains, however.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=1006051720041

Obama's coke and pot use as noted by Bill Shaheen? That wasn't the problem, this was:

"Shaheen said Obama's candor on the subject would "open the door" to further questions. "It'll be, 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?'" Shaheen said. "
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/12/12/post_235.html

The cocaine business became an issue on Hardball (fancy that!) when Mark Penn brought it up and Joe Trippi landed on him.
http://thepage.time.com/hardball-transcript/

But ya'll are behind the times in terms of framing and once the SC primary is over, that issue will most likely lose some steam as issue in the "progressive" bloggerdome battles.

Get ready for class wars, v.2008 . Sharpen your weapons and gird your loins for arguing about;

Hillary as the champion of the (real) folks who shop at Walmart

vs

Obama as the hero of the wimpy (metrosexual) types who frequent Starbucks.

When real men and women, from diverse races and cultures, actually live and work together and get to know one another a little, they usually find a way to relax a little bit. They usually don't go out of their way to be offended by the distant etymology of common phrases like "shuck and jive." They usually don't make such a big deal out of somebody getting a little choked up once and a while. They usually manage to cut one another a little slack and be themselves.

Politics should be more like that.

I don't really expect the Republicans to play along, but I'd like my Democratic champions to find their properly dismissive, "WHATever" voices that would diffuse about 95% of this nonsense.