"Why are you making this about race?"

Elspeth Reeve answers a question she's been asked after her "How Racist Is the Obama Phone Video?," which I linked, approvingly, yesterday.

This is a he-who-smelt-it-dealt-it argument. Or, as Stephen Colbert's persona likes to say, "I don't see race." This line of argument wants to change the subject to something, anything other than race. Hey, what about free phones?! Patterico at Patterico's Pontifications tried defending the video, saying, "The above video is hilarious. It is representative of a group of Obama voters who feel entitled to handouts from government. It does not matter what the color of the speaker is. It’s news... Conservatives should not have to shy away from such amusing examples of entitlement mentality simply because the particular proponent of that mentality happens to be black." This is intellectually dishonest, at best. We await Patterico delving into the minutiae of the Universal Service Fund. Until then, it's just "hilarious." Specifically, it's hilarious because it uses one person to portray a huge group of people in a negative way is. The point of the video -- and the reason Drudge and Limbaugh hyped it -- is to say, this is what Obama voters look like: black, poor, stupid, and after your money. The video's subject wasn't picked out because she "happens to be black," she was picked out because she is black. Lee Atwater, strategist for Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, explained how this works way back in 1981 -- better to talk about cutting taxes and bussing, because it's "a hell of a lot more abstract than 'Ni***r, ni***r.'" Of course, this Internet meme isn't all that abstract.

If it's insufficiently abstract, it won't work. Our conscious anti-racism filters may keep the material from reaching us. In fact, as I said in my post yesterday, what I feel happening to me emotionally — and what I'm guessing may happen to other middle-of-the-road types like me — is repulsion away from the Romney side. It's not Romney's fault, he can't control what his supporters say in their efforts to promote him, but he needs to be a more dominant figure in his own campaign. Voters need to associate him with a clear and compelling message that doesn't feel connected to this racial material coming from other sources.

"So we know that Congressman Weiner talked dirty to Lisa Weiss about fighting for the country in his cape and tights."

"And we know that an underaged girl, who loved Congressman Weiner, apparently quoted him talking about fighting for the country in his cape and tights."

If Weiner never talked about "cape and tights" publicly, the appearance of a "cape and tights" quote in a young girl's Tumblr writings is probative of private communications between the 2.

I've been averting my eyes from the Weiner...

... but I can't help noticing this and this.

"If nitecruzr is just some random dude with no connection to Google, how does he have the ability to flag your account for calling him rude and unprofessional?"

Patterico gets to the root of things!

Patterico reassembles the Google support thread in which "nitecruzr" "kept taunting Ann, and then removing (memory-holing) his own taunts, but leaving her responses — making the thread an unreadable mess."

Original, unexpurgated forum thread here. Patterico reviews it with commentary here. Excerpt:

Oh, she was complaining about your helpful statement that you escalated your complaint to Blogger Support for her? Is that it, nitecruzr? Uh, sorry, that doesn’t pass the smell test. It’s just that, now that he has deleted all the abusive comments, that’s the last comment of his left standing.

Patterico does an excellent job showing what happened in that thread and how the power to delete was used for ass-covering and making me look presumptuous and thin-skinned.

But is nitecruzr a Google employee? He takes on a gatekeeping function in the forum, but he isn't designated as an employee like Brett — electrobutter — who finally shows up and treats me with some respect.

Interviewing Condi....

... will be done Condi's way.

"How many other demented people are out there? It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target."

"Their wish for Second Amendment activism has been fulfilled—senseless hatred leading to murder, lunatic fringe anarchism, subscribed to by John Boehner, mainstream rebels with vengeance for all, even nine-year-old girls."

One of the survivors of the Tucson massacre, Eric Fuller, says that is what he wrote down after staying up "most of the night" in the hospital, trying to calm himself down and organize his thoughts, and writing out (from memory) the text of the Declaration of Independence.

ADDED: Patterico notes:

But you never hear them ask the obvious follow up question: do you still feel this way?  And if you look at the rest of the report, created today, it is obvious that these people are completely dishonest.  They have deliberately skewed every other piece of evidence to indict the right wing, leaving out every piece of evidence that might exonerate their targets.  Why should we think they presented this man’s entire statement?