Yesterday Politico ran a long article by reporters Glenn Thrush and Donovan Slack on the revival of race as a political issue.
Compared to the way Obama is usually revered by Politico, this article actually approached even-handedness once or twice, most prominently in its generous admission that “the vast majority” of criticisms of Obama “aren’t … rooted in race.” Since the bulk of the article’s space and nearly all of its quotations were given over to those like Jesse Jackson who see Obama criticism as characterized by “code words” and “coded expressions” of racism, however, Thrush’s and Slack’s admission sounds about the same as an observation they quote from that highly regarded racial statesman, Al Sharpton, who similarly admitted that “not all” the people in this country can’t stand the fact that a black man is president.
Anyone worried about Politico backsliding into a reasonable facsimile of objectivity regarding Obama, however, needn’t. Thrush and Slack make it abundantly clear that on race Obama is as pure (probably in part because he’s not as white) as the driven snow. Obama, they assure us, is “a one-of-kind politician whose crossover appeal to white independents has always been rooted in a color-blind appeal to fairness.” Obama has always, they assure us, “gone out of his way to make sure white voters can’t accuse him of favoring blacks.”
Of course — this is Politico, after all — Thrush and Slack never even mention affirmative action. Since they don’t, they never explain how Obama’s unwavering support for racial preference policies, his opposition to state referenda requiring color blindness, his administration’s briefs in support of racial preference policies in Texas and elsewhere, and his Justice Department’s steadfast refusal to prosecute any voter fraud or intimidation cases against minorities comports with his asserted “color-blind appeal to fairness.”
