"Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about race.  OK, fine.  I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed.  I'll let you know what I come up with." 

The above was Rush Limbaugh's e-mail to political reporters yesterday morning after learning that Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama.  Spin this anyway you want, Limbaugh is saying two things:  First, Limbaugh is saying that General Powell's endorsement of Obama amounts to nothing more than "black folks sticking together."  Second, when General Powell says that his endorsement of Obama is not about race, Limbaugh is calling him a liar.  So now the question is, what does John McCain have to say about the matter.  Well, if McCain does have anything to say about Limbaugh's blatantly racist comment, it's tough to hear him over all those crickets chirping on the straight talk express.

You might recall a couple weeks ago when Congressman John Lewis said that McCain and Palin were "playing with fire" by stoking up their crowds/mobs with innuendo that Obama had some sinister unknown background -- statements which, in turn, elicited shouts from the crowd/mob of "kill him" and "bomb him" at the mere mention of Obama's name.  Congressman Lewis said this type of incendiary talk was dangerous and he invoked the memories of George Wallace inciting his crowds/mobs with hate-filled speeches as a cautionary example.  As a man who was beaten nearly to death by George Wallace's Alabama state troopers on Bloody Sunday, this was a statement that Congressman Lewis undoubtedly did not make lightly.  Instead of pausing for a moment to reflect on the somber warnings issued by a man who John McCain had described just weeks earlier as one of the three wisest people he knows, however, McCain instead feigned outrage at Lewis's remarks and sought to take political advantage of them by claiming that Congressman Lewis had called him and Palin racists and segregationists -- a tortured and absurd interpretation of Lewis's remarks.

With nothing substantive left to talk about, McCain continues to ride his manufactured victim complex for whatever he can squeeze out of it.  Just yesterday morning, McCain again brought up the subject on Fox "News" Sunday and said that Barack Obama should repudiate Congressman Lewis's statements.  McCain went on to state, "I have repudiated every statement made by any fringe person in the Republican Party."

Which brings us back to Rush Limbaugh.  Will McCain risk alienating Limbaugh and his legions of dittoheads by calling Limbaugh's statement what it is -- a racist smear of General Powell?  Will McCain man up and repudiate Limbaugh's racist smear?  Or having already jettisoned every other principle he once held, will McCain continue his pandering ways and, at best, offer some tepid mealy-mouthed distancing from Limbaugh's statement or, at worst, just give Limbaugh a pass completely?  I know what my bet is.  Any takers?