Joan, I believe in your sincerity and your goodness. I won't stop believing these because of this discussion, but here is where I disagree with where you seem to be taking up the point of view that the Clintons have:

In order to "smear" someone as a racist you must first be absolutely 100% certain that this person is not a racist (and in a country like ours--and after knowing this with complete certainty, you must make a false allegation, or lie about them.

You can call the interpretations about the events of South Carolina or the speech on MLK "wrong" or "overly sensitive" or "misguided," but to call them "lies" implies deliberate wrong-doing.

Joan, how can you think that Obama or his supporters are guilty of this? Can't you just say you disagree that he is a racist? Do you have to insist that he is clear of all charges and the allegations themselves are deliberate fabrications?

When criticized, the Clintons passed the blame to those external. But to say "the Clinton's were smeared as racists" --no one in hundreds of pages of commentary has given anything but something they interpret as an accusation of racism. Not a straight up accusation from Barack Obama or from his surrogates.

This conflict can even have a generational lens because even the young staffers who wrote the so-called race memo experience racism differently--much differently than some people who might have watched the country evolve through several decades. Young people are more sensitive (maybe too much so at times) to race. I thought for example, the recent comments about the leaning tower of Pisa for in the recent McCain commercial to be a bit silly...

But it is one thing to disagree that a statement is racial or very racial--it is another to accuse the person who sees things differently is deliberately making that up in order to "smear." We're caught right now in a gridlock and predict many letters and little healing on this issue. I am struggling to forgive those who falsely label Obama as a race baiter or someone who smeared Bill Clinton (which I consider as bogus as you consider the charge that clinton is a racist) when he cannot help being black nor the fact that people continually focus on his race even when he appears to try to not focus on it much himself. Just as those who believe he is a race baiter or a person who deliberately smeared the good Clintons with a knowingly dishonest label cannot forgive Obama. Neither side can see a good intention on the other side--only on their own side.

I just don't see a way out unless we could agree that we see the world differently...many of us. The racial history of our country doesn't make it easier nor the passion of the primaries.

What you see as playing offensive, we see as playing defensive for a candidate who was facing tremendous odds in getting people to see him as a person and not just a skin. And I'm increasingly unwilling to forgive Bill Clinton for blaming Obama for some of the things I watched him say that did seem insensitive to me. His expectation that everyone must acquit him of any possible mistake or bad intention falls flat when he accuses Obama of having a a horrible intention to "frame" him as a racist. Do you see the power differencial--and how much more powerful Bill Clinton is in this situation and how vulnerable Obama is? Yet Clinton plays the injured party to perfection.

ugh.

The worst part is that we've had these conversations before.

p.s. Where I agree with you, I would love to see Hillary as a VP and I think she would be better than the others. But I also agree with you that Bill seems to make this impossible. I wish it were not this way--and I hope he does choose a woman even if I don't like them as much. Maybe Sebelious.

Joan, throughout this primary you were my favorite political columnist at Salon because you were the only one willing to acknowledge that Clinton supporters had legitimate reasons for feeling skeptical about the Obama bandwagon.

But in this article, most of which I agree with, you can't say "white" without saying "privileged" or "sheltered." Excuse me, but this white man has known, lived with, worked with, and dated African-Americans. I haven't been sheltered from "them" and I'm angry as hell that the Obama camp chose to paint the Clintons as racists. Let's not forget that Obama is not descended from slaves (though his wife is), yet he played on the generational resentments of AAs in a cynical attempt to cleave them from Hillary's side.

Unforgivable.

On top of that, he's the least qualified candidate for the presidency since...George W. Bush.

I won't be voting for him (or McCain) this November, and I actually hope he loses (I say that as a lifelong Democratic voter, but it appears the yellow dog has died this year).

Four years of President McCain is a price I'm willing to pay to see Hillary elected in 2012.

Give it up, my dear. You can't win with the Bill-and-Hillary are racists crowd.You can't win with those who believe if you offer any slight criticism of Obama, and you're white, you're racist. If you're black and dare to criticize him, you're an Aunt Jemima, Uncle Tom and all their offspring. I do believe their constant braying and parsing just about everything Bill and Hillary say as racist is hurting Obama in a big way. Apparently, to compare Barack Obama to any Black person, including MLK is "racist."

The most egregious and unforgivable act of this election season was when Hillary was accused of "denigrating" MLK for basically saying you need the right person in the White House to support and sign needed (and right) bills into law. To use MLK's name to perpetrate such an evil act will be remembered for a very long time.

Bill Clinton is traveling all over the world, especially Africa, in the fight against AIDS. In America he's fighting against childhood obesity. But do we hear one word about that in the latest bullcrap put out by the media? No! All they want to do is rile him up about his "racism." My God! Why wouldn't he be mad as hell?!! Yet these same people want him to go out an stump for Obama! Why would you want a flaming "racist" stumping for you?! Stay home, Mr. President!!!