Ground Game

Liberal bloggers are going after John McCain record on race, both real and perceived. Over the weekend, Matt Stoller accused McCain of "dog whistle politics" for delivering a speech that was 40 miles from the murder of a civil rights worker in 1964. It was a stretch at best, with no real supporting evidence. In fact, Stoller later updated his post to correct himself. Matthew Yglesias had his own strangely worded post on Tuesday essentially accusing McCain of highlighting his military record as a roundabout way of highlighting his status as a white mail. Or, as Yglesias put it, an "identity politics counter-narrative steeped in nostalgia." These are the kind of baseless accusations that can devalue real problematic incidents by desensitizing the public to charges of racism in general.

Of a more substantive nature, Markos Moulitsas links to video of McCain attempting to defend his record on voting against, then for, making Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a state holiday. McCain's reasoning is awkward and doesn't hold up under scrutiny. The harder truth is likely that many conservatives opposed making MLK's birthday an official holiday because he was not a traditional American icon, i.e. a war hero, politician, etc. While there is a fair limited government argument to be made here, it's also only fair to acknowledge that this reasoning was in fact likely "dog whistle" politics. At the very least, it seems insensitive and shortsighted in hindsight.



Hat Tip: James Taranto