Diseased American politics

Predictably--although they were so quick off the mark that I was taken by surprise--the blog and media racists who infest the American political scene have hared off after Barack Obama--and his spouse.

She's a "baby mama," according to Faux News, the term being a pejorative referring to Black women who have children out of wedlock. Her fist-to-fist "pound" with Barack was "a terrorist fist jab." But of course Fauxer Bill O'Reilly, the dumb bigot who was surprised that Blacks in restaurants use knives and forks, doesn't want to go on a "lynching party." (Who needs dog-whistles when you have Faux News telling it like it isn't?) And, since the first defence of a racist is to call your opposition racist, Michelle Obama has been accused of using the term "whitey" in a non-existent videotape. (The usual suspects are all over that one, like, er, white on rice.)

Meanwhile, Obama monkey dolls and T-shirts are now for sale on the Internet.

Obama, being Obama, has been quick off the mark too, launching a website to counter what promises to be a malodorous verbal avalanche of raw racist sewage during the presidential run. Swiftboating is the work of gentlemen in comparison to what we can confidently predict will be the deliberate racializing of the 2008 campaign.

I had thought the Civil War was over. I still believe it may well be. Obama has a shot at the top job. But the "Keep the White House White" folks are busy little bees. The Old South is rising again, with one last, desperate slobber of racial hate--only this time it's happening on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. And the conservative media, as always, are there to help out.