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Heretofore little-known Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia was born in 1950 in Atlanta and was raised in one of its surrounding communities.
 Which means the Republican grew up at a time when the racial divide in the South was stark, a time when Jim Crow laws helped enforce a segregationist credo that limited opportunities for blacks, a time when -- as an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article puts it today -- "uppity" was "a word applied to African-Americans who tried to rise above servile positions."
But to hear Westmoreland tell it, he had no clue he was using a racially tinged word when, as reported by The Hill newspaper, he said in Washington this week: "Honestly, I've never paid that much attention to Michelle Obama. Just what little I've seen of her and Sen. [Barack] Obama, is that they're a member of an elitist class ... that thinks that they're uppity."
The remark, the Journal-Constitution reports, quickly "zipped around the Internet, causing Westmoreland’s office phones to ring off the hook."
That furor, in turn, prompted the two-term congressman to issue the following statement: I’ve never heard that term used in a racially derogatory sense. It is important to note that the dictionary definition of ‘uppity’ is ‘affecting an air of inflated self-esteem -- snobbish.’ That’s what we meant by uppity when we used it in the mill village where I grew up.
It's amazing that someone with such a sheltered upbringing could achieve such success in life.
-- Don Frederick
Photo: Associated Press
Rev. Al is not happy with the Clintons.
With the Democratic National Convention abuzz with anticipation over Hillary Clinton’s speech to it tonight, civil rights activist Al Sharpton says she and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, cannot afford anything less than an extraordinary effort to help Barack Obama’s pre sidential candidacy -– beginning this week with an intensified push for party loyalty.
Otherwise, Sharpton warned today, their reputations within the party -- once sterling -- could be permanently tarnished.
“It can damage their legacy in the long run if they don’t get a grip pretty quick,” Sharpton told The Times.
Sharpton’s comments came as many leading Democrats attempt to tamp down reports of festering tensions between the Clinton and Obama camps -- and a definite reluctance among some Clinton delegates to stand foursquare behind Obama.
Some African American delegates in recent days have complained that the Clintons are giving only lip service in saying they will help Obama, and that they are actually more interested in helping Hillary Clinton plot her next political moves.
As it is, Sharpton added, the racially tinged primary campaign has already hurt the once-tight relationship between the Clintons and black America.
“I’d like to see them in the trenches,” Sharpton said. “They did a lot of damage against him, so they’re going to have to do a lot more than the ordinary for him -– not (just) for him but for the public to believe them.”
-- Peter Wallsten
Photo credit: Greenfield-Sanders / HBO
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*Except, of course, for the conspiracy theorists out there.
One of the subtexts to the presidential cam paign so far has been speculation by haters of both Barack Obama and John McCain that neither is eligible to be president because neither was born in the U.S.
In the case of McCain, he was born to U.S. citizens in the U.S.-controlled Panama Canal Zone while his military father was stationed there. McCain's Senate colleagues pooh-poohed the idea that disqualified him, and lawyers are wrestling over it, but we doubt that a challenge on those grounds will get far.
In Obama's case, there has been rampant online speculation that his birth certificate is forged or altered somehow. Well, the folks at FactCheck.org say they have seen the certificate, touched and vouched it -- Obama is as American as baseball, apple pie and, these days, burritos, pasta and kung pao chicken.
So that should settle it ... unless ... wait ... the people at FactCheck.org use computers, with keypads, that have the letters r-e-z-k-o on them, which just happened to spell the name of one of Obama's disgraced former backers ... and they were in Chicago to see the birth certificate at ... Obama headquarters ... CONNECT THE DOTS, PEOPLE!
--Scott Martelle
Photo: Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times
Bob Mulholland of the California Democratic Party just sent out a roundup and demographic details of the California delegation to Democratic National Convention in Denver (you may have heard something about that event). The whole list is after the jump, but the demographic details are interesting to look at here.
According to Mulholland's roundup, the delegation includes people from all 53 congressional districts -- naturally, since that's part of the formula for divvying up delegates -- but only 35 of the state's 58 counties.
But it is, according to Mulholland, "the most diverse delegation in the nation," with 25.9% Latino, 17.2% African American, 8.6% Asian/Pacific Islander and 2.7% Native American. Those under age 30 compose 11.1% of the delegation, 7.7% are disabled and 11.3% are lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgendered. (Do you think the California Republicans will break out that demographic before their national convention?)
In raw numbers, Mulholland says California's Democratic delegation includes 49 people younger than 30, which he points out is a higher number than the total delegations for 19 states and the District of Columbia. And those tallies do not include California's 62 alternate delegates.
-- Scott Martelle
Read more 'Ladies and Gentlemen -- Your 2008 California Democratic Delegation!' »
It had all the elements of a perfect political mystery during the heat of a surprisingly close presidential election campaign -- there at the end of a recent New York magazine story headlined "The Color-Coded Campaign," was an unattributed paragraph reporting that:
The highly controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright, he of the anti-American and black nationalist rantings within and without the pulpit of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ where Democratic nominee Barack Obama attended for 20 years apparently oblivious to such statements, was planning an October book publication.
And a national book promotion tour.
What would Obama's onetime spiritual mentor and family minister be saying just days before the Nov. 4 presidential election involving the parishioner who was forced to denounce him last spring shortly after saying in a major speech on race that he could never denounce him?
Was the book this election cycle's October surprise?
What a story! And it was quickly picked up in recent days by several blogs, no doubt drooling at the thought of some more religious controversy mixed with politics.
According to Wright's daughter, Jeri, however, she reached her father in Ghana, which is about as far from Chicago's South Side and U.S. TV cameras as anyone can get. There, she said, he has poor e-mail access but denied nonetheless the existence of such a book.
Jeri Wright told Essence.com, "I asked him if he was writing and he said, 'Nope. I'm not publishing anything. I'm not going on any book tours.'" New York magazine even published an online correction.
She said she and her father are doing a book on the history of his former Trinity church, from where he just retired. Which should be really exciting.
Good thing we all found out now, 'cause once both candidates pick their VP's here in the next 10 days or so, we'll still have two whole months to speculate about some other October surprise.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Photo credit: Trinity United Church of Christ
As more and more attention is paid to Barack Obama's failure to stake out a solid, sustained poll lead in the presidential race (as of Sunday, the Gallup daily tracking survey pegged the contest a flat-out tie), more and more attention focuses on the often unspoken -- race -- as a key factor.
In a recent New York magazine piece, John Heilemann wrote: "Call me crazy, but isn’t it possible, just possible, that Obama’s lead is being inhibited by the fact that he is, you know, black? ... The desire to ignore the elephant in the room is easy to understand, but Obama will not have that luxury."
David Paul Kuhn, examining the same dynamic at Politico.com., wrote: "Shanto Iyengar, a Stanford University political scientist, notes that several political forecasting models today predict the Democratic candidate winning a clear majority of the vote, a threshold that has thus far escaped Obama in polling. But he adds that those predictions are for a generic Democrat under 'normal circumstances' in a year where the Republican Party is in dire straits."
“ 'The real question is: Why is Obama, then, underperforming?' Iyengar added. 'There is something about Obama that is causing something of drag.' Iyengar believes that something is Obama’s race."
None of this will come as any surprise to Mary Bruns, a 65-year-old grassroots worker for Obama in Nevada who, as The Times' Seema Mehta reports, was among those attending an appearance Sunday by the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee in Reno.
Bruns confided to Mehta that comments she hears as she goes door-to-door on Obama's behalf has her worried that simple, old-fashioned prejudice will derail Obama's presidential bid.
Older people in particular, she says, make comments such as, "We can't vote a black person in there; they'll think they rule the world."
Wrote Mehta: "If people will say that to her face, the retired nurse wonders what they say behind closed doors. 'I think a certain segment of the American population is just ignorant,' she said. 'I don't give them the time of day.'"
Bruns told Mehta she is pinning her hopes on a large turnout of young voters, such as her son, who switched his registration from Republican to Democrat to support Obama.
“I have a great faith in the young people; they’re color blind,” she said.
-- Don Frederick
John McCain might have a point when he calls Barack Obama a "celebrity candidate." After all, the Illinois Senator is married to one of America's most popular cover girls.
You better be ready for a lot of her in coming days.
Potential first lady Michelle Obama will dominate the pages of three major magazines this month. She'll appear by herself on the cover of Ebony and with her husband, Barack, on the cover of Ladies' Home Journal. And, as the Ticket previously reported, in the pages of Harper's Bazaar, she'll be played by supermodel Tyra Banks. 
Yes, it's true. Earlier rumors that Banks dressed up like Michelle Obama and cavorted around a faux White House with a Barack Obama look-alike for the September issue of the magazine have been confirmed. Here's a link to a video documenting the baffling photo shoot.
No word yet on what the Obamas think about all this. But they're going on vacation in the face of the developing "Obama fatigue" and probably don't care.
Meanwhile, here's an excerpt from their interview in Ladies' Home Journal, which hits newsstands August 17. In it, the pair open up about how they deal with problems in their marriage, the role women will play in this election, and whether or not Michelle would play a role in an Obama White House.
 On Michelle becoming a part of his administration:
Barack Obama: “Michelle is one of the smartest people I know. She is my chief counsel and advisor. I would never make big decisions without asking her opinion. Certainly about my career and my life.
"My sense is — and I’ll let her speak for herself here — that she’d probably be more interested in having a set of projects that were driven by her interests and her desires, as opposed to me handing her some sort of portfolio and saying, ‘Here, do this.’”
Michelle Obama: “There are a ton of issues that I care deeply about. But the notion of sitting around the table with a set of policy advisors — no offense — makes me yawn [laughter].
"I like creating stuff. I’d love to be working with young people. I’d love to be having more conversations with military spouses. I’ve learned not to let other people push you into something that fundamentally isn’t you.”
On marital problems:
MO: “There were a lot of things time-wise that he couldn’t provide because he was not there. So, how do I stop being ...
Read more Michelle Obama: Cover Girl, Cover Girl, Cover Girl »
On Wednesday, campaigning in the state once known for the Missouri Compromise of 1820, Sen. Barack Obama, the Democrats' presumptive nominee for president, said about his Republican opponents:
"Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. What they're going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know: 'He's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.' "
That last phrase was the spark that set off  perhaps the most profound and potentially emotional and divisive disagreement of the general-election campaign so far. To many, the most obvious commonality among "those other presidents on the dollar bills" is not powdered wigs; it's their race: white.
Immediately, John McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, sharply rejected Obama's statement, saying the Democrat had "played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck." Davis called Obama's remarks "divisive, negative, shameful and wrong."
With not much else going on in midsummer, the media pounced, and we had a full-scale flareup. On Thursday, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs denied Davis' accusation and said Obama was simply referring to the fact that he didn't come into the race with the history of others. "It is not about race," Gibbs claimed.
Obama has since called the race charge "a typical pattern" of the GOP campaign.
But now Obama's chief campaign strategist, David Axelrod, admits that the candidate was referring in part to his race when he suggested that the McCain campaign wants voters to fear Obama because he doesn't look like other presidents.
"He's not from central casting," Axelrod told a national TV audience Friday, "when it comes to candidates for president of the United States. He's new to Washington. Yes, he's African American."
Our blogging colleague Katie Fretland has more details on the ongoing controversy over here at the Swamp.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Photo credit: Newsday
ORLANDO, Fla -- John McCain received a polite greeting at the national conference of the Urban League in Orlando a little while ago, but the room turned decidedly chillier when the largely African American audience grilled the Arizona senator on his new support for Ward Connerly's initiatives against affirmative action.
Shortly after McCain's prepared speech ended and the floor opened to questions, one African American man received cheers when he asked the Arizona Senator how he could support Connerly's proposals.
"Affirmative action is in the eye of the beholder," McCain said. "I think the United States of America has reached a point where we should provide equal economic opportunities for all Americans, and I think Americans have rejected a quota system." And then McCain added, to scattered laughter and hisses: "The best equal-opportunity employer in America today is the United States military, and I think that Colin Powell is an example of that."
Moments later, Steve Hightower, president of Hightowers Petroleum Co. of Franklin, Ohio, said that the number of black students in universities dropped sharply once those universities banned affirmative action. McCain countered that he wanted to improve education starting from the ground up with charter schools and school choice. "We can improve the education of all Americans, but especially those who live in economically deprived areas," McCain said. He added: "By the way, keep drilling offshore, pal."
Even though other questions focused on McCain's plan to drill offshore for oil or on his health care plan, affirmative action remained a clear undercurrent of the discussion. One black woman introduced herself as a fluent Japanese speaker with an MBA, but noted she was "in an affirmative action program" before asking McCain about how he would improve conditions in U.S. prisons.
-- Nicholas Riccardi
Our colleague Steve Braun, traveling with Barack Obama's campaign, reports that Obama was just heckled during a town hall gathering in St. Petersburg, Fla., by six black protesters who unfurled a banner that read: "What about the black community, Obama?"
Obama, adopting what has become most political figures' response to such interruptions, turned at the podium inside the high school gym and bantered with the protesters for several seconds as the crowd booed. Finally, Obama said, "Just be courteous, that's all." The protesters quieted and turned their banner over to a an Obama staffer, but later in the speech again began to chant, only to be drowned out by the Obama crowd.
Later, Obama gave one of the protesters a chance to ask a question. The protesters, one of three black men and three women who held up the sign, launched into a rambling diatribe complaining about Obama's failure to address police killings of black men in N.Y. and St. Petersburg and his failure to address predatory lending against minorities. "Why is it you have not had the courtesy for one time to speak on interests of the oppressed and exploited black community in this nation?"
Obama replied that he had spoken out on the cop killings and on predatory lending, and when the man tried to argue back, Obama said: "That doesn't mean I'm going to satisfy your positions," and added: "You can always vote for somebody else." The crowd responded with a standing ovation as the protester sat down stone-faced. The protesters repeatedly interrupted the Q-and-A session, only to be drowned out again and again by chants of "Yes we can!" and boos.
So, who were the protesters? The banner identified them as from "UhuruNews." A website with that name says it's the "Online Voice of the International African Revolution," a socialist-leaning group "dedicated to giving voice to the struggles of the African working class from around the world through its programming in an effort to unite and inform the struggles of African people and forward the International African Revolution."
The chair is Omali Yeshitela, who denounces Obama in YouTube videos as "white power in black face." So why do we post these details? Because the moment indicates that this is one campaign in which race will persist as a factor, in ways large and small, though election day.
UPDATE: Braun talked afterward to one of the protesters, Diop Olugbala, 31, who was wearing a gray T-shirt and sported a neck tattoo that reads: "Serve the People." Olugbala said he was a
St. Petersburg resident and "international organizer" for the
"International Peoples' Democratic Uhuru Movement." The organization
runs a website that espouses socialist economic theories and rails
against U.S. and foreign governments that prevent "self-determination for
African people." "He falls short with the black community," Olugbala insisted in the brief interview with Braun.
-- Scott Martelle
Perhaps it's the summer heat. Whatever, the churlish aura increasingly enveloping the presidential campaign showed no sign of abating today.
The cause celebre of the moment involves a comment Barack Obama made Wednesday as he campaigned in Missouri. As John McCain's campaign unveiled its fourth straight attack ad -- the "Celebs" spot that lumps Obama with lightweight (and scandal-plagued) favorites of the paparazzi Paris Hilton and Britney Spears -- the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee had this to say (as related in a Times campaign story): "The only way they figure they're going to win this election is if they make you scared of me. 'He's new. He doesn't look like the other presidents on the dollar bills. He's got a funny name. . . .' The argument is that I'm too risky."
Obama has invoked the "doesn't look like other presidents" line in the past, but usually in a positive context -- as in, how his ability to attract support across various demographic groups signifies, among many voters, a "post-racial" approach to politics.
The context of the remark in Missouri, of course, was much different -- implying that the GOP was seeking to call attention to his biracial heritage.
The McCain forces today made clear they would have none of that. Campaign manager Rick Davis fired off a terse, two-sentence statement: “Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck. It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong.”
Asked about his comment just moments ago on MSNBC, Davis stressed that he took great umbrage at Obama's inference that any aspect of the campaign's recent offensive against Obama had racial overtones.
Davis also was pressed by the cable network's Andrea Mitchell to defend the Obama-Hilton-Spears linkage. He insisted it was fair because all three have great name recognition and lots of fans. He added that "the really important thing" -- what the ad was attempting to drive home -- was that just because Obama is "a great celebrity doesn't mean he's ready to lead the country."
-- Don Frederick
[UPDATE: Here's the lengthy exchange on MSNBC between Davis and Mitchell, who as the interview proceeds struggles to get a word in edgewise against the fired-up campaign aide].
It isn't often that an issue involving a specific state takes center stage during a presidential campaign -- particularly if the matter isn't even officially before the voters yet.
But an effort in Arizona to prohibit state and local governments from considering race, ethnicity, color, gender or national origin  in matters involving public employment, public education or public contracting was among the topics discussed by both John McCain and Barack Obama on Sunday.
The Arizona ballot initiative is the brainchild of Ward Connerly, the former UC regent who was behind a similar proposal in California more than a decade ago. His Proposition 209, approved in 1996 with 54% of the vote, amended the state constitution to prohibit public institutions from applying preferences based on race, gender or ethnicity.
He sponsored similar successful drives in Washington (1998) and Michigan (2006).
Now Connerly is taking his cause around the country, targeting Arizona, Colorado and Nebraska this year (efforts failed in Missouri and Oklahoma).
On Thursday, supporters delivered petitions containing about 100,000 more names than needed to the Arizona secretary of state's office, which now must verify the validity of each signature to determine if the initiative will make it on the November ballot.
Appearing Sunday on ABC's "This Week," McCain was asked specifically ....
Read more It's not even on the ballot yet, but McCain and Obama have positions »
Fresh off his visit to three European capitals, where cheering crowds greeted his every move, Sen. Barack Obama spoke on Sunday to journalists attending Unity '08 in his hometown of Chicago.
The conference brought together members of the National Assn. of Black Journalists, the Asian American Journalists Assn., the National Assn. of Hispanic Journalists and the Native American Journalists Assn., and Obama's remarks were broadcast live on CNN.
Concern that an enthusiastic reaction to Obama’s nationally televised remarks might be viewed as unprofessional led conference organizers to send out an e-mail to 6,800 attendees, urging restraint: “Every effort should be made to maintain professional decorum during the event, especially since it will be broadcast to millions of people who will be watching an audience of journalists listening to comments of a political candidate for the U.S. presidency.”
They were looking to avoid a repeat of what happened in 2004, when some attendees gave that year's Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. John F. Kerry, a standing ovation, while President Bush was the recipient of boos.
But despite the official entreaty, the convention hall erupted in loud applause when the presumptive Democratic nominee walked in, and many in the audience left their seats to take pictures of the candidate when he finished.
"Our readers expect a certain distance, and applauding closes the gap,” said Les Payne, a columnist for Newsday. “That said, there are not just journalists here. There are family members and people in other professions.”
Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee-in-waiting, was also invited to speak at the conference, but his campaign declined, citing scheduling conflicts. McCain spent the day at his home in Sedona, Ariz., and leaves Monday morning for events in California.
McCain’s decision not to attend prompted one attendee to accuse the Arizona senator of “blowing off” an invitation to address thousands of journalists while complaining that “the media isn’t giving him enough love.”
-- John Mitchell
Photo credit: Associated Press
Barack Obama paid a solemn visit this morning to Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust museum, laying a white flower wreath on a memorial to Jews killed by the Nazis.
“Let our children come here and know this history so they can add their voices to proclaim never again,” Obama wrote in the Jerusalem museum’s guest book.
Obama’s second visit to the museum — his first was in 2006 — came after he met privately with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the leader of the Labor Party, and Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Likud Party. Both are former prime ministers.
This afternoon, Obama will travel to Ramallah to meet with Palestinian leaders, then fly by helicopter to the southern Israeli town of Sderot, the target of frequent Palestinian rocket attacks fired from the Gaza Strip.
At the Jerusalem museum, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president wore a yarmulke for a brief ceremony before a flame commemorating those who died in Treblinka, Buchenwald and other Nazi concentration camps. Obama laid the wreath on a stone slab that covers the ashes of Holocaust victims.
--Michael Finnegan
A Wall Street Journal opinion piece, provocatively headlined "Why Jesse Jackson Hates Obama," argues that Jackson pursued equality through the manipulation of white guilt.
The reason that Obama bothers Jackson so much, contends author Shelby Steele, is that the Illinois senator takes another tack to promoting civil rights.
Steele, of Stanford University's Hoover Institution, portrayed Obama's approach as "give up moral leverage over whites, refuse to shame them with America's racist past, and the gratitude they show you will constitute a new form of black power. They will love you for the faith you show in them."
But Frank James, writing for our colleagues at The Swamp, says that Steele is missing an obvious motive: jealousy.
"Black America has seen this movie before. There was the rivalry between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois at the start of the 20th Century. That contest was based partly on ideology as to the best way for African Americans to advance in a racist nation. But it was also personal," James writes.
--Stuart Silverstein
 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is nothing if not diplomatic -- after all, that's a significant part of her job description.
She proved that yet again this morning, during an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN's "Late Edition," when she was asked about the historic nature of Barack Obama's position as the presumptive Democratic nominee for the White House. BLITZER: One final question. Your immediate predecessor, Colin Powell. I interviewed him many times. But he said this to Tavis Smiley, back in January. About this race and about the phenomenon of Sen. Barack Obama, he said this:
"Let's enjoy this moment where a person like Barack Obama can knock down all of those old barriers that people thought existed, with respect to the opportunities that are available for African Americans. And my congratulations to him."
Now, you grew up in the segregated South. You know what racism is in our country. The fact that Barack Obama is now the Democratic presidential nominee, what does that say to you?
RICE: I think it's great. And I think it's great for our country.
And I do think it says that we've come a long way. But it's interesting that it's from Colin Powell. He knocked down a few barriers of his own. He knocked down the barrier of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He knocked down the barrier to the first black secretary of State. Yes, I've knocked down a few too. It just shows that our country has been doing this for a while and it's great that this last barrier, perhaps, has also come down.
BLITZER: Have you decided who to vote for?
RICE: Wolf, yes.
BLITZER: Do you want to tell us?
RICE: No.
She was less diplomatic -- in fact, her straight talk could rival GOP nominee-in-waiting John McCain's -- when asked about speculation ...
Read more Condoleezza Rice praises Barack Obama -- but oh so diplomatically »
The mystery has been cleared up about what else Jesse Jackson said last week when he made his crude remarks about Barack Obama.
The previously unreported comment, disclosed Wednesday morning by the TVNewser blog, was:
“Barack ... he’s talking down to black people ... telling [black people] how to behave.” Only Jackson used the plural form of the “n-word,” not “black people,” in the second part of his comment.
Initially, the firestorm was over comments Jackson made to a guest before a July 6 interview on "Fox & Friends."
The civil rights leader whispered that Obama was "talking down to black people" and that Jackson wanted to "cut his nuts off."
The comments went unnoticed in the control room, Fox News said. But, as reported by The Times’ Matea Gold in a story published Friday, an employee working the overnight shift transcribed the tape, and the remarks that first caused the stir were reported several days later on Fox’s "The O’Reilly Factor." Then, as The Ticket reported, there was a controversy over exactly what Jackson said he wanted to do.
At the time, host Bill O’Reilly told viewers the network had decided to air only portions of what Jackson had said, adding there was "more damaging" material, too. That gave rise to rumors that Jackson had used the “n word” –- and aimed it directly at Obama.
In a Wednesday afternoon interview with fellow Fox host Shepard Smith, O’Reilly said he had withheld the “n-word” remark because, “I’m not in the business of creating some kind of controversy that’s not relevant to the general subject -- one civil rights leader disparaging another over policy.”
But why did O’Reilly mention in the first place that he had “more damaging” material?
In a one-sentence statement offered as a reply, O’Reilly said Wednesday: “We tell the audience the full breadth of everything we report on.” There was no elaboration on why the “full breadth” didn’t include the actual comment.
As for how the “n-word” comment eventually got out, O’Reilly told Smith that “some weasel leaked it to the Internet.”
-- Stuart Silverstien
Barack Obama’s critics often say the Illinois senator is all talk and no action but, in a bit of role reversal, the wordsmith’s own campaign adopted that sort of attack language today.
In a statement responding to Sen. John McCain’s education remarks before the NAACP, the Obama camp lectured the Arizona Republican that "making education the national priority will require more than campaign speeches, or recycled bromides. It will require a genuine and sustained commitment to policies that will strengthen and not undermine our public schools."
The statement went on to promise that Obama would "fix and fund No Child Left Behind, expand access to early childhood education, and make an affordable college education a reality for every student."
McCain, for his part, took a moment to make nice toward his Democratic rival. (You think maybe he sensed that it wouldn’t be too smart to launch a sally against Obama before an NAACP audience?)
As the Times’ Robin Abcarian reported from the Cincinnati gathering, McCain drew his loudest cheers when he said of Obama: "Don't tell him I said this, but he is an impressive fellow in many ways."
McCain added, "Of course, I would prefer his success not continue quite as long as he hopes. But it makes me proud to know the country I've loved and served all my life is still a work in progress, and always improving."
On education, Abcarian reported, McCain advocated better pay for good teachers and new teacher recruitment programs, and he vowed to fully fund No Child Left Behind, the Bush Adminstration’s program for improving school performance. McCain also promoted a cause dear to conservatives’ hearts, school vouchers, noting the distinction between his position on that score and Obama’s.
-– Stuart Silverstein
This week's provocative New Yorker magazine cover featuring Barack and Michelle Obama as armed and Muslim calls attention to a variety of myths floating around the country these days, mainly online, but also openly voiced. 
To check on what you hear, the website snopes.com is valuable. It tracks and debunks urban legends of the e-mail variety. It could be the first place you go when that unexpected message pings into your inbox from another e-mail chain.
You can also search Snopes for more myths or alleged truths about others such as Sens. John McCain (he did tell a story once about a fellow POW in Hanoi who got beaten for sewing a U.S. flag on his prison shirt) or John Kerry (his photo does hang in a Vietnamese Peace Museum for being a war protester).
According to the site, here are the top myths about Barack Obama:
- He is a "radical Muslim" who will not recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
- He was sworn into office on the Koran.
- Obama's church has a "nonnegotiable commitment to Africa" that is covertly Muslim and excludes non-blacks.
- Obama has been endorsed for president of the U.S. by the Ku Klux Klan.
- Obama's presidential campaign is being funded by Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez.
For the rest of the mythical Obama list, check out our colleague James Oliphant's intriguing story over at the Swamp.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Photo: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Credit: Associated Press
We were somewhat chagrined to learn that The Ticket is not among John McCain's regular stops on the Internet. Then again, virtually no website is.
Indeed, his wife Cindy was completely chagrined that in detailing the very few blogs that his aides direct him to, McCain neglected to mention the one written by their daughter, Meghan.
That would be McCainblogette.com, for those who spend more time on a computer than the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, who is 71. And that category would be just about anyone with access to one.
In his wide-ranging interview published Sunday in the New York Times, he elaborated on his previous self-characterization as computer "illiterate." His wife and close associates “go on for me. I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself."
Once he masters that skill, he'll resist the next step -- "I don't expect to set up my own blog," he said.
Which is too bad, because that would be the perfect venue for him to one day reveal the jest that was on the tip of his tongue when he was asked if it was more difficult to battle Barack Obama for the presidency "because of the sensitivities of race."
McCain, the article reported, "responded wryly: 'I’d like to make a joke, but I can’t.' "
We doubt we are alone in being more than a bit curious just what that joke would be.
-- Don Frederick
Jesse Jackson should have long ago learned the dangers of speaking too bluntly with the media anywhere in sight (or, in the controversy that erupted today, a microphone anywhere near).
Jackson, before this year, laid claim to running the most noteworthy campaigns an African American  had waged for the White House. In the 1988, in fact, he was a major factor in the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination -- he won 11 primaries and caucuses, briefly led in the delegate count in the early spring and was the last challenger standing against the eventual nominee, then-Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis.
The groundwork for this strong showing had been laid by his candidacy four years earlier. But his 1984 campaign remains best remembered for the flap over disparaging comments he made about Jews and New York City.
As recounted in this post on Washingtonpost.com, Jackson "referred to Jews as 'Hymies' and to New York City as 'Hymietown' in January 1984 during a conversation with a black Washington Post reporter, Milton Coleman.
Jackson had assumed the references would not be printed because of his racial bond with Coleman. But several weeks later Coleman permitted the slurs to be included far down in an article by another Post reporter on Jackson's rocky relations with American Jews. A storm of protest erupted ..."
A "storm" of protest hasn't yet greeted the revelation that Jackson -- ostensibly a Barack Obama supporter -- used crude language a few days ago as he waited to appear on Fox News Channel and, in a whispered aside to another guest, expressed his view that the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has been "talking down to black people."
One very strong protest, however, was issued this evening by Jackson's son, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois. The congressman's office e-mailed this statement (complete with three sentences boldfaced): "I'm deeply outraged and disappointed in Reverend Jackson's reckless statements about Senator Barack Obama. His divisive and demeaning comments about the presumptive Democratic nominee -- and I believe the next president of the United States -- contradict his inspiring and courageous career.
"Instead of tearing others down, Barack Obama wants to build the country up and bring people together so that we can move forward, together -- as one nation. The remarks like those uttered on Fox by Revered [sic] Jackson do not advance the campaign's cause of building a more perfect Union.
"Revered [sic] Jackson is my dad and I'll always love him. He should know how hard that I've worked for the last year and a half as a national co-chair of Barack Obama's presidential campaign. So, I thoroughly reject and repudiate his ugly rhetoric. He should keep hope alive and any personal attacks and insults to himself."
On a lighter note, to check out what our friends at The Swamp aptly refer to as a "now-prescient Saturday Night Live cartoon" on an imagined Obama-Jackson-Al Sharpton dynamic, go here.
-- Don Frederick 
Read more Jesse Jackson, embroiled in a new furor, has been here before »
Nevada's vote in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections was relatively stable -- good news for Republicans.
Its party registration figures, though, have been undergoing a transformation, which this November might translate into glad tidings for Democrats. Emphasis on "might."
Eight years ago, George W. Bush carried the Sagebrush State against Al Gore by 21,597 votes out of about 609,000 cast (giving him a winning margin of roughly 3.5 percentage points).
Four years ago, Bush won Nevada over John Kerry by 21,500 votes; with almost 830,000 cast, the president's margin was reduced a bit, to about 2.6 percentage points.
Democrats could at least take solace in the trendline. But they are finding much greater joy in a new set of numbers -- the voter registration breakdown, as of June, from the Nevada secretary of state's office.
On its list of "active" voters, Democrats outnumber Republicans by 55,560 -- an edge of about 5% among this entire pool of registrants, which numbers a bit more than 1 million.
Especially encouraging for Democrats, as state Democratic Party official Kirsten Searer pointed out to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is that at this point in 2004, the GOP had a 1% advantage in voter registration.
We've got to give credit to Zac Moyle, executive director of the Nevada Republican Party; he didn't try to sugarcoat the matter, saying, "We're disappointed by the numbers."
Most distressing must be ...
Read more In Nevada, the numbers game tilts Democratic »
Power is perishable, and when politicians exit the stage, it often doesn't take long -- especially in Washington -- for their importance to be only vaguely recollected.
 So with the death today of former Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina at age 86, we offer some reminders of the central role -- for good, ill or a combination of both, depending on one's viewpoint -- he played in public policy and political discourse (The Times' obituary can be read here).
Back in the late 1990s, the Almanac of American Politics said flatly of Helms that "no American politician is more controversial, beloved in some quarters and hated in others...."
This, at a time when Bill Clinton was deep into his presidency.
First elected to his Senate seat in 1972, aided by Richard Nixon's landslide in that year's presidential election and the increasing GOP appeal to the South's conservative ethos, Helms at first was chiefly known for his staunch -- and often colorfully expressed -- opposition to abortion rights, gay rights and a raft of other liberal causes.
He truly became a figure to be reckoned with, however, through his tenure on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (he eventually became its chairman). As the political almanac put it, he used his seat "to conduct something like his own foreign policy." During Ronald Reagan's presidency and the administration of George H.W. Bush, Helms and a band of loyal aides "developed their own sources and attempted to manipulate State Department appointments to help the contras in Nicaragua and rightists in El Salvador."
Helms was revered on the right. In comments on MSNBC today, Pat Buchanan judged him "the second most important conservative of the second half of the 20th Century" (the first, of course, being Reagan).
And he was reviled on the left, perhaps never more so then during his 1990 reelection campaign when he faced a spirited challenge from an African-American, Harvey Gantt.
That race overshadowed all others in the nation that year, and it lives on due to the controversial -- many say race-baiting ads -- that Helms employed.
The best-known ad sought to tap into resentment against "quota" hiring practice by showing white hands crumpling a job rejection notice while a narrator intoned that the better qualified applicant had been bypassed for a minority hire.
Less well-known is a spot that berated Gantt for waging a "secret" campaign because he was advertising on black-owned radio stations.
Helms won the election, 53% to 47%, and then defeated Gantt by virtually the same margin in a rematch six years later.
As our friend Frank James notes in his posting on The Swamp, Helms "was more complicated on racial issues than the caricature he had with much of the public."
Still, some will see irony in the timing of Helms' passing -- just a few weeks before Barack Obama makes racial history when he becomes the Democratic presidential nominee.
-- Don Frederick
Photo credit: Newsmakers
On the Fourth of July, our thoughts naturally turn to those words penned by Thomas Jefferson and first read aloud on the square behind Independence Hall in Philadelphia 232 years ago today: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
So what would Jefferson, a noted slave-owner, have thought about the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama?
For that answer ....
Read more What would the Founding Fathers think of Barack Obama? »
As Barack Obama continues his focus on states that usually vote Republican in presidential elections, word comes that he may campaign at a NASCAR event. Why? Well, to paraphrase a supposed Willie Sutton line that he robbed banks because that's where the money is, if Obama needs white working-class voters in the fall, there are few better places to find them than at a NASCAR event.
Roll Call has the news, but it's behind their subscription wall. Briefly, they quote Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki as saying a campaign appearance was a possibility but no dates or firm confirmations were offered. "We would love to make it to a NASCAR race if the schedule permits," she said.
Roll Call noted that the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series hits the Chicagoland Speedway next weekend then later in the month races at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Bill Clinton tried that tack in September 1992, campaigning at the Southern 500 Stock Car race in Darlington, S.C., but drew jeers and catcalls and insults about his lack of Vietnam War service. That was the year Richard Petty was retiring, and the staunch Republican and racing icon told track officials he wouldn't drive the pace car -- part of his retirement-year sendoff -- if Clinton was in the parade.
Clinton lost South Carolina by 8 points. And more recently George W. Bush actively courted NASCAR fans -- getting a much better reception.
-- Scott Martelle
Photo by Ben Margot/Associated Press
As of now, Barack Obama seems committed to competing vigorously in Georgia and North Carolina -- the two states are among 18 that have been targeted for two waves of general election ads by his campaign.
But Obama's ultimate chances of carrying those two states -- as well as Mississippi, where some of his  supporters believe he has a shot -- are nil, argues Thomas Schaller, a political science professor at the University of Maryland's Baltimore County campus.
Schaller brings an impressive pedigree to the table in making his case; he's the author of the 2006 book “Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South.” As summed up in this blurb, Schaller contended that for Democrats -- certainly those seeking the presidency -- "spending valuable resources in Southern states is a dangerously self-destructive strategy..."
In an Op-Ed piece in today's New York Times, he focuses his general thesis on the particulars of Obama's candidacy. For instance, he walks through the prospect of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee maximizing black turnout in Mississippi and winning 95% of that vote (John Kerry corralled 90% four years ago), and concludes that Obama still would come up short in the state.
A major hurdle for Obama throughout the Deep South, Schaller writes is this: "the more blacks there are in a Southern state, the more likely the white voters are to vote Republican."
The one state in the region that Schaller thinks Obama has a "reasonable chance" of winning is Virginia -- in part because the percentage of its black population is low, compared to most other Southern states, and in part because, he writes, it has been transformed by a "huge influx of upscale non-Southerners."
Virginia also is one of the states where the recent spate of Obama ads has been airing (a list that contains several traditionally GOP states, as we noted previously).
Despite Schaller's overview, many Democrats in the South are feeling feisty these days, as illustrated by this news from Mississippi.
President Bush traveled there today ...
Read more Barack Obama & the South: Forget about it, says an expert »
It wasn't the sort of issue that John McCain (or Barack Obama) needed to prepare for Saturday in Washington when each courted Latino elected officials at their annual meeting. But Monday, at a McCain town hall meeting in Pipersville, Pa., a woman had a pointed question for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, a query sparked by America's changing demographics.
 "Why, as an American, do I have to push a button to speak English or hear English?"
The audience, a sea of mostly white faces, erupted in deafening applause.
"I think you struck a nerve," said McCain, for whom this is a delicate issue, given his support in recent years of efforts to reform U.S. immigration law that included a "path to citizenship" for most illegal immigrants that was derided by its foes as "amnesty."
"I tell ya," continued the woman, "I really get ticked. I really do."
"I can tell," said McCain.
"And then you go into Lowe's," she continued, referring to the home improvement store, "and it says 'Entrada.' And every utility bill you got has got a foreign language on it."
Oh, and by the way, she added, would he autograph a copy of his book, a gift to her husband for his 71st birthday?
On immigration, McCain gave his now-standard reply, acknowledging ...
Read more John McCain gets put on the linguistic spot »
In two new articles, pollsters put the attitudes of A) non-Latino white voters and B) Latino voters toward Barack Obama under a microscope.
In the Wall Street Journal today, Peter Brown of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute writes that he finds it "more than a little ironic that it has taken the first African-American to win a major party presidential nomination to make clear to everyone what has been the case for more than 40 years in presidential elections: Democrats have a problem with white voters."
Brown doesn't specify that the white voters to which he and other pollsters refer excludes those of Latin American descent. But we checked with him and that's the case.
In his piece, which can be read in full here, he notes that no Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon Johnson, in his 1964 landslide, has won a majority of this white vote. He argues: "For those voters, especially ones without college degrees, the fact that Sen. Obama is black may not be as much a disqualifier as his background as a Democrat from the Frost Belt with no national security or executive experience and a voting record judged by the nonpartisan National Journal as the Senate’s most liberal during 2007."
The Chicago Tribune's Swamp blog has its take on Brown's column here.
On the Huffington Post Saturday, two members of the Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Democratic polling firm made their case for debunking the notion that the Latino vote is up for grabs in November's election.
Mark Feierstein and Ana Iparraguirre write that Obama's relatively weak performance among Latinos in his primary battle with Hillary Clinton (who dominated among those voters) "has helped fan the idea that he has a Latino problem or that Hispanics are disinclined to vote for black candidates."
Not so, they contend. They note that national polls have shown that Obama "is running well ahead of John McCain among Hispanics, and significantly better than John Kerry did against George Bush in 2004."
That may be how it plays out ...
Read more Views of whites, Latinos toward Barack Obama analyzed »
Yeah, OK, so we're a little late. Hey, there's 40-some blogs around this website now and it's hard to keep up with everything fun to read.
Over in The Guide at Soundboard, the music blog, Ann Powers writes about the BET Awards, which she approached crazily thinking it was an awards ceremony.
How ridiculous was that?
According to Ann, the ceremony -- and even much of the clothing -- turned the evening into pretty much a pep rally for Barack Obama, the Democrats' presumptive presidential nominee. Another stunner!
-- Andrew Malcolm
Ralph Nader irrevocably earned a spot on Democratic "don't invite him" lists when, in the view of virtually everyone except himself, his 2000 presidential bid cost Al Gore the White House and delivered it to George Bush.
 Nader will go to his grave scoffing at such complaints; whenever asked, he insists that Gore has no one but himself to blame for the loss and presses his case that there's virtually no difference between the two major parties because both are beholden to corporate interests.
He's running for the umpteenth time again and, as he made clear in an interview this week with Denver's Rocky Mountain News, there's little worthwhile he sees in the latest Democratic pick for president.
Summarizing the interview, reporter M.E. Sprengelmeyer writes that Nader accused Barack Obama of "downplaying poverty issues, trying to 'talk white' and appealing to 'white guilt' during his run for the White House."
The "talk white" and "white guilt" comments, of course, ensure Nader a burst of attention that his latest candidacy has been lacking up to now.
Here's one of the Nader quotes from the article: There's only one thing different about Barack Obama when it comes to being a Democratic presidential candidate. He's half African-American. Whether that will make any difference, I don't know. I haven't heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos. Payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, lead. What's keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white? He doesn't want to appear like Jesse Jackson? We'll see all that play out in the next few months and if he gets elected afterwards.
The full story and a video of the interview can be perused here.
Appearing on MSNBC a few minutes ago, Obama aide Robert Gibbs called Nader's comments "reprehensible and basically delusional."
They also are an interesting contrast to remarks Nader made about Ron Paul when pitching himself to Paul's supporters earlier this month.
[UPDATE: At an afternoon news conference in Chicago, Obama was asked about Nader's remarks and he responded cooly and without anger. "What's clear is that Ralph Nader hasn't been paying attention to my speeches" because, he said, he frequently has addressed the issues Nader charged he had been ignoring. He dismissed the inflammatory language Nader used as a bid to try to get attention for a candidacy that has been mostly under the radar. "It's a shame," he said, given Nader's "extraordinary" legacy as a crusader for consumer causes.]
[UPDATE II: In a stroke of good timing, the Washington Post today published this lengthy feature piece that covers his struggles to stir up interest in his campaign, the grief he still takes about the 2000 election and, in general, where he's coming from.)
-- Don Frederick
Photo: Associated Press
As the first African American to secure a major-party presidential nomination, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama has understandably been the subject of much analysis across the country that focuses on race.
But overlooked is another potential political first: Americans have never sent a Chicagoan | |
Which means the Republican grew up at a time when the racial divide in the South was stark, a time when Jim Crow laws helped enforce a segregationist credo that limited opportunities for blacks, a time when -- as an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article puts it today -- "uppity" was "a word applied to African-Americans who tried to rise above servile positions."
