You remember Gene Lyons, right? For those who came in late, he was one of the very few voices of sanity in our famously free press when the VRWC was ginning up Whitewater, and working up to their failed attempt to impeach Clinton.* (See his book, Fools for Scandal, and The Hunting of the President, which he authored with Joe Conason.) Well, here's what Lyons has to say about the Obama's race-boating. Let me fair-use a great slab of it, it's all good. We'll pick it up after Hillary's IN win, when, as per usual, the WWTSBQ howling reached another crescendo:

“It’s high time,” wrote John Aravosis on americablog. com, “the Superdelegates told the Clintons to take their sorry, scandal-ridden asses and get the hell out. We are going to have another month of these vindictive, racist losers destroying Obama’s credibility with the very voters he is going to need in the fall to beat [John ] McCain.” Clinton didn’t help herself with an infelicitous demographic allusion, citing an Associated Press story “that found how Senator Obama’s support... among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again.” This prompted even so normally sensible an observer as my good friend Joe Conason to compare her to George Wallace. So did New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, who’s been fanning the racial flames since Obama’s New Hampshire loss. This because under the politically correct rules of engagement preferred by the Obama camp, only the Illinois senator gets to make ex cathedra observations about such ticklish matters as race and class, which must be treated as infallible. Pundits like Herbert and The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson have been chattering about the so-called “Bradley effect” ever since New Hampshire, but the Clinton camp must not.

Why not? Because contrary to conventional wisdom, it wasn’t the Clintons who “racialized” the campaign at all. It was the Obama campaign, seemingly for the sake of galvanizing African American voters in must-win South Carolina. (See Princeton historian Sean Wilentz’s article, “Race Man: How Barack Obama Played the Race Card and Blamed Hillary Clinton,” in The New Republic. )

The problem, however, is that tactic, along with the crackpot effusions of Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Obama’s deeply unpersuasive claim that he knew nothing about them, transformed his candidacy. Many citizens who would vote for an African American without a second thought are put off by a candidate who makes race the central issue of his campaign. Winning tactic, losing strategy.

Screaming “racist” at people—I’ve received a grand total of two e-mails from Obama supporters that didn’t—only makes things worse. Real bigots don’t care, while Clinton supporters increasingly resent the accusation. (My skin’s thicker than most. ) Most also think it’s a foolhardy way to avoid discussing the realities of the Electoral College, [see here here and here. It really is "the map, not the math," because the general is won in the EC.] which is what Clinton was trying to do. Regardless of why working-class white voters don’t support Obama, no Democrat can win without them. Can anybody name two states that Obama can win that John Kerry lost in 2004 ? Supporters normally duck the question with effusive references to massive voter turnout, which the blogger “Anglachel” parodies: For all the “crowing about what a superdoublewidefantastic party organization The Precious has built, how it’s cool and digital and virtual and full of lots and lots of bloggers and money.... All of which makes me go so where were those voters in Indiana ? Pennsylvania?... His efforts didn’t make a difference for him in Ohio, Texas, Massachusetts or California.... The fact is that the contest this year as such, not just Obama, is bringing out a huge number of voters, and half of them are voting for Hillary.” Meanwhile, I’m hearing increasing numbers of Clinton supporters, passionate Democrats all, say they cannot vote for Obama. And that’s a very worrying sign.

Bingo. Perhaps Obama could address these concerns in some concrete fashion in the course of The Greatest (Meta-)Victory Speech EVAH that he's going to give to climax his coronation tonight? And perhaps now we could talk about misogyny?

Of course, I'm a racist, so what would I know?

NOTE * The hate manufactured to support that effort fortunately only exists in the world of the freepers, the shouting heads, and the pro-Obama portion of the netroots. The rest of us have long gotten over reflex activity when hate triggers like "Vince Foster!" or "Travelgate!" are uttered. Honestly, reading the threads on Kos was a hoot; it was like stepping into a time machine and going back ten years. New kind of politics...