File this under “You’ve GOT to be kidding me”
Is talking about someone’s stint as a community organizer really an attempt at veiled racism? NY Governor David Patterson thinks so:
ALBANY (CBS) ― On Monday, Gov. David Paterson angered some state lawmakers by comparing them to vampires, calling them a bunch of “blood suckers.” On Tuesday, he raised eyebrows again, and tempers, by accusing the John McCain campaign of veiled racism.
At the Crain’s Business Forum this morning, Paterson drew attention to a phrase used numerous times by speakers at the Republican National Convention to describe Barack Obama’s leadership experience: community organizer.
“I think the Republican Party is too smart to call Barack Obama ‘black’ in a sense that it would be a negative. But you can take something about his life, which I noticed they did at the Republican Convention – a ‘community organizer.’ They kept saying it, they kept laughing,” he said.
Paterson referred to McCain’s running mate Sarah Palin who compared her work experience to Obama’s.
“So I suppose a small town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except with real responsibilities,” she said at the convention.
Paterson sees the repeated use of the words “community organizer” as Republican code for “black”.
“I think where there are overtones is when there are uses of language that are designed to inhibit other people’s progress with a subtle reference to their race,” he said.
This is one of the accusations against Rudy and Gov. Palin thrown out there by the left shortly after the barnburner speeches both made last Wednesday at the RNC where they both chuckled about Obama’s community organizer days. Thankfully, in response to the race card throwing by liberal Ezra Klein and others on the left, at least one voice of liberal sanity emerged from that debate.
Another one to be filed under “You’ve got to be kidding me”: McCain’s latest ad against Obama, an ad that at best, grossly misleads the viewer and at worst, flat out lies about Obama’s position on sex ed for kids. The McCain campaign can do better than that, and it should. It’s great having momentum right now, but they don’t need to overplay their hand.