Obama supporters are accused of not reading Walentz's article. When they do and provide a point-by-point refutation, they're mocked for their parsing and overanalysis.

I simply can't get over the willing suspension of "benefit of the doubt" treatment that both sides employ here at salon. I used to think of this place as enlightened and thoughtful, but instead I see the harsh reality that all those reductive, black/white prisms I used to think belonged exclusively to Republicans are merely human. Apparently progressives are equally prone to pick up a simplistic narrative proffered by the media, helped along by opposing political forces, and call it the truth.

Some of what Walentz says makes sense; most seems narrowed into a prepared meme created to villify Obama. This is what we all said about W, remember? when all his evidence supported his narrow view of Iraq and WMD. Remember when the press cherry-picked the hell out of Al Gore's stuff to make him out to be a liar, and performed the same service for Kerry, the flip flopper? It didn't matter one whit that W himself flipped on myriad issues, from N.Korea to the 9/11 Commission to steel tarrifs: What mattered is that that particular meme belonged to Kerry, so he was the only one who was allowed to be tagged with it.

I'm not a conspiracy nut. There's no way that a single MSM Boss is telling all the disparate outlets what to print or say. But these storylines emerge anyway, and then shoddy reporting and intellectually lazy audiences foster them, give them legs. And then they become truth, or conventional wisdom anyway.

I sympathize with Clinton supporters who suddenly find that the conventional wisdom is that the Clintons are racist. They are not. But to suggest that it is a deliberate strategy of the Obama camp to paint them as such defies much more than the evidence (and I've read Walentz's article, full of biased editorializing. I'd offer it up point by point, but X has already done that to your great contempt); it defies our own senses. Look at Obama's actual responses to charges about the Clintons or questions about Clintons and race:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=vmE1VWUlOD0

http://youtube.com/watch?v=lzkJGJaR7bw

Obama's authentic and thoughtful responses here are simply not calculated. If he is not overwhelming in his rejection of the Clintons as race-baiters (for lack of a better word), then you should consider the possibility that he is a truthful person who is genuinely not sure if they are using race (not as racists, but as ALL candidates use demographics in their strategizing).

I wish people would remember what they thought about both these candidates when this all started: they are both gold. There are so many people saying "I liked X when I started, but now seeing the way s/he treated Y, I will never vote for X even if s/he is the nominee." What a shame. I would venture to say the souring has come mostly at the hands of the candidate's supporters and surrogates rather than the actual campaign. There are salon letter-writers whose blind suppport of Clinton have occasionally put me in that mind-set, but I quickly readjust.

As an aside, why do Clinton supporters think Obama is the only one who hasn't laid a charge to rest more forcefully? What charges against Obama has she forcefully laid to rest? When he was accused of "snubbing" her, she fanned the flames blatantly to Chris Wallace of FOX. When she jumped in at the last debate in the Farrakhan thing, I thought she was actually going down the road of "You know, Tim, I've been in a situation before where there are zealous or misguided supporters--you can't blame Obama for every idiot who likes him." Instead, she went divisive: "You know, Tim, I've been there before and I handled it way better."

All I'm saying is that everything you throw at Obama could be thrown at Clinton too. Neither could possibly be where they are without considering horse-race aspects of campaigning. I think it's fair to hold Obama to a higher standard b/c he's essentially running on that, and I think he's earned the accolades he's rec'd for his generally unifying remarks. If you're inclined to really know the truth, go back to Independent Thinking 101. Go back and look at his responses in debates and elsewhere, and use your own senses. Stop letting patently biased "journalists" turn you into conspiracy theorists who think Obama is the antiChrist. That he is indeed thought of that way quite literally in huge swaths of the South should bring you back to your senses faster than anything out there.