Oh, here it is: “The difference between African-Americans who voted for Obama becasue he is black, and whites who voted for McCain because he is white, is that the African-Americans were voting *for* something.”

You have so much contempt for the basic intelligence of others, that you actually believe we’ll unquestioningly swallow your class-B propaganda.

“I talked to enough people on the campaign trail who used the n-word fast and free…”

No you didn’t, Pearatty. And you know it. The rest of us live on the same planet as you Pearatty. Sorry, but you don’t exist in some alternate parallel universe. You fantasize that legions of oppressive non-African-Americans are wandering around floating the “n-word” in your presence to justify your own bigotry. The last time I actually heard someone (Jesse Jackson & NWA notwithstanding) use the dreaded “n-word” *gag* was probably 20 years ago.

I talked to enough people on the campaign trail who used the n-word fast and free, and told me that that’s exactly what they were doing, that I don’t have to conjecture about what people who were voting for McCain *because he’s white* were doing.

In contrast, the people I talked to who were excited that Obama is black, were not saying “it’s about time we got whitey out of the white house.” They were just saying how great it was that this time had come.

As for whether or not that’s racism, it certainly betrays an awareness of race, which may constitute racism to some people. My argument is that it’s not bigotry.

This is a text book example the monumental arrogance of liberals like Pearatty. Her superior intellect empowers her to know why someone voted for or against McCain. But 98% of African-Americans vote for Obama, and that’s not racism, is it?.

Catholics voted for Kennedy; Jews voted for Lieberman. Heck, my parents supported a certain democratic candidate for the sole reason (as far as I can see) that he had the same last name. I voted for Clinton, in part because she was a woman, and I thought that would be cool. People are attracted to candidates because they attended the same school, because they’re from the same state or because they root for the same baseball team. None of it means that Catholics are anti-protestant, Jews are anti-Christian, I am a man-hater, or people from Yale are snobs. (Ok, that last is not the strongest part of my argument.) It’s not bigotry, it’s affinity.

The difference between African-Americans who voted for Obama becasue he is black, and whites who voted for McCain because he is white, is that the African-Americans were voting *for* something. The whites were voting *against* something.

I get that it’s a fine distinction. But I do think it’s a valid one.

I recently heard Sandra Day O’Connor say, as a speaker at a fundraiser, almost exactly the same thing Rice did (that although she was not going to say who she voted for, she thought it was a great and groundbreaking thing for this country that we have elected an African-American). I did not hear a single person suggesting that O’Connor felt that way because of her skin color, or that she had sold out because Obama is black.

That is what I meant when I said that I thought the comments were racist.