We are seeing the true ugly side of American racism. It's coming from the Republicans, it's coming from the Clintons, and it's coming from the people on the street.

Obama is being asked things no white candidate would be asked. Where are the questioners of McCain over John Hagee and Rod Parsley? Where are the questioners of Clinton over her past associations - and Bill's?

America has become a truly depressing place.

Yes and no.

While Dems as a whole certainly face a harsher environment that Republicans (especially McCain), its hard to deny that African-Americans face one that's harsher still.

No serious Black politician is NOT going to be asked about Louis Farrakhan, regardless of whether or not they have any association with him at all. And there's no good answer. If you denounce, why didn't you do it earlier? Yet for many, if not most of them, the question shouldn't even be asked since they will have had no association to begin with.

I don't really see how you can avoid seeing this.

I've been told that we are a great nation. I hate being lied to.

Welcome to America, what else is new?

Been their and heard all of it!

Far from being alone!

Now what? Work on this one!

Maybe rifle practice in Bosnia might help!
Try the sects of Islam, on for size?

Just a few humble suggestions!

Joe Pettit's post is right on. (I'm going to ignore the trolling, though it certainly helps to prove his point.) I also agree with Oregon Activist that there's a weaker version of the same assumption operative for Democrats in general. "How do I *know* you love your country, if you don't wear this lapel pin? You might be just like all the *other* Democrats." Or as people observed about the ABC debate: Republicans have to respond to Republican questions in their debates . . . whereas, in their debates, Democrats have to respond to Republican questions.

This seems to me to be one of the primary things Josh, and other media gadflies, have set out to change.

another excellent post by a thoughtful well-reasoned person.

not to jump on the bandwagon, but i agree that dems in general are scrutinized more and well obama happens to be a dem and happens to have the wrong color, so it's double whammy for him.

can we all just get along? ludmila, you should take a long vacation and take rev wright and bubba and the likes with you....you are not helping your candidate.

Excellent post! I say that mostly because of how well written it is. But I've got a problem with one of your premises. It's in the following passage:

...no words or deeds from Obama can successfully demonstrate that some pernicious truth about him does not exist.

I disagree. In several of my posts, I've argued for multi-step process he can outline in a major speech. To combat guilt by association, he must, I believe, rise up into his statesman persona that he used in his speech on race; that speech did reverse the damage done by the initial round of Wright revelations.

From that elevated position, he can address not just the attacks against him but the threat to our democracy posed by guilt by association journalism and politics. He can draw a comparison to the McCarthy era, which was completely driven by guilt by association; the point is to show that this is a dangerous influence and that we are vulnerable to it. He can offer to begin to lead us out of our involvement in this tactic.

He must begin by empathizing with the people who succumb to those attacks, confessing that he himself had not understood them well enough to combat them. He can say that he has not taken the problem seriously enough, thinking that if he just explains his version of the facts and argues against negative campaigning, people will see through the attacks. He has to admit that his method hasn't worked well enough. And he has to admit, that despite all of his education, he didn't really understand this tactic and how to defeat it. The point here is that it is no great failing to be fooled by guilt by association--many smart, good people are.

Careful analysis has revealed to him, he can say, that guilt by association is a formidable tactic and can't be defeated easily. An important step is to realize that the majority of reasonable sounding guilt by association attacks work subliminally. For example, Hillary has repeatedly said that she would have "left that church." This is a euphemistic charge, but everyone at least senses what she means. She means that because he didn't leave the church, he's guilty by association. To put a knife point on it, he's a closet black radical. She nor her staff and many mainstream journalists never make that charge explicit. Only extremists do, especially in the beginning of the life of a guilt by association charge. So Obama seldom directly addresses it. This explains why these charges are having an effect.

What he must then say is that, whenever a guilt by association attack is made, he must first expose the hidden attack. For instance, he could say,

Perhaps some voters are worrying that I'm a radical, either a black radical or a militant, Weatherman-style radical or both. You may be worrying that I'm just lying to you and that, if I were president, I wouldn't fairly and agreeably serve all Americans, because I don't normally drink beer and sometimes say stupid things about Middle Americans.

He can explain that, if we don't get our accusers to make their charges explicit, we can't answer them.

Then he should say that, whenever a guilt by association charge is made, we've got to demand more evidence than the association someone has with someone else. In his case, he could say,

I think it's only fair that if you think I'm a radical or that I am a heartless snob who can't possibly care deeply about the lack of healthcare and jobs from which many people are suffering, you have to come up with more evidence than what you're putting out there. And you have to compare your evidence with mine.

Were I him, I'd then lay out all of the evidence from his life that demonstrates what kind of person he is. Instead of the piecemeal approach he now uses in relation to each fire that gets set, he's be putting them all out at once in a document that can be referenced throughout the campaign.

Then I'd say,

If that process doesn't convince you that I'm who I say I am, I will submit to a panel of prominent journalists, answering all of their questions, providing documentary evidence, and being accessible afterwards for follow up questions.

John Kerry did that with a bunch of angry journalists in New York and changed their minds about him; alas, it happened too late and wasn't well publicized.

Then he can end with a bit of the oratory he's famous for, arguing that if you can't provide evidence other than an association with someone, some proof that he is a radical or doesn't care about most Americans, accusers should stop repeating the guilt by association charges. And if they don't, Americans should denounce them for trying to subvert the democratic process.

My method may seem unnecessary to some. But a good argument can be made that he is in danger of losing precisely because people think that he is not genuine and that he is a closet radical and/or a heartless snob.