Quickly: I love how the headline at Misogyny TV is about the ad attacking Bush and McCain, ignoring the slur against HRC.

Luda called her a "bitch" (A slur is a slur no matter how popular it is). I think that goes beyond not being "nice." But yes, I agree, it's a bit odd for a man who exploited heinous bigotry and even dabbled in some ignorance himself to all of a sudden (pretend to) condemn it. And anyone who has ever heard Ludacris before and certainly one who considers him one of their "favorite" rappers would know his history and defense of misogyny (see: Oprah vs. Ludacris). So it's total bullshit for Obama to say he's against Luda's hate and other nonsense when he enjoys his "talent."

Obama favoring the likes of Luda and Eminem ("Lose Yourself" doesn't cancel out a career built solely on ultra-violent hate) is fucked up, especially when there's Lupe Fiasco, a true talent who doesn't revel in misogyny but condemns it. The dude is even from Chicago. Check him out:

And because I love his albums so much, here's one more:

I thought he just called her irrelevant, not bitch.

"That's not the same Ludicris song I just listened to in my iPod".

That is why you missed it, DCB. It is irrelevant and totally not newsworthy that people publicly call Clinton a bitch.

Here are a few of the lyrics, via Riverdaughter

I’m back on it like I just signed my record deal
yeah the best is here, the Bentley Coup paint is dripping wet, it got sex appeal
never should have hated
you never should’ve doubted him
with a slot in the president’s iPod Obama shattered ‘em
Said I handled his biz and I’m one of his favorite rappers
Well give Luda a special pardon if I’m ever in the slammer
Better yet put him in office, make me your vice president
Hillary hated on you, so that b**** is irrelevant
Jesse talking slick and apologizing for what?
if you said it then you meant it how you want it have a gut!
and all you other politicians trying to hate on my man,
watch us win a majority vote in every state on my man

At least Obama acknowledged that the lyrics were offensive to Clinton, according to your linked story, so I guess we're making progress.

Bill Clinton for First Dude!!!

I certainly don't feel sorry for HRC but my heart goes out to our nation and its children. It appears all hope is lost for civility, accountability, responsiblity and any other ity that's been dashed by Obama's campaign.

I love this job!

Bernstein over at CNN. Not able to find the comment myself...still looking.

This is sad news indeed, my friends. It would have been the right thing to do. A floor vote would have given the DNC some shred of credibility...oh, there's another ity squashed by Dean & Co.

I don't want to play anymore. I want to go home.

I love this job!

clearly I spend too much time online

I wouldn't put above the DNC to label that night as "DNC Lady's Night".

Oh, isn't that so magnanimous, letting the little lady speak at the big convention. Better yet, she can tell her supporters on the largest stage, yet, to shut up and give Obama money!

Ponies, Dude! Everyone's Getting Ponies! You get a pony, and you get a pony...Obama's Favorite Things!

the campaign are the people spreading it and pushing it for their own reasons, and not outside people or the singer, etc-- and they are not outraged or upset by this, and are in fact propagating those lyrics all over the media -- by their own actions.

I haven't seen one article that said "Ludacris releases song: Obama camp denounces" or any rightwing anger over it or anything like that before the campaign fed this to the media.

Many Americans would never ever have heard this song, or of this song at all--especially older Americans--but now they've received the message that Obama's taking a moral stance against it, and they've heard/read the exact insults too. The McCain is old/feeble/cranky stuff is exactly what they themselves are pushing, and the Hillary hate is just more redmeat for Obama's base too.

http://riverdaughter.wordpress.com/2008/...

"Chris Matthews’ pal, Gloria Boerger might have revealed the latest in the Obama and the DNC’s bizarre attempt at drawing in the Hillary Clinton voters.

View it here: http://video.thechrismatthewsshow.com/pl...

“Remember Hillary Clinton?” she chirps with a slight sneer when asked “for something I don’t know,” by Chris Matthews. And what does Chris not know? — That IF Hillary’s name is placed in nomination it will happen in the morning as far as possible from prime time and the bulk of American television viewers. ..."

and the transcript-- http://www.thechrismatthewsshow.com/html...

"... MATTHEWS: Welcome back.

Gloria, TELL ME SOMETHING I DON'T KNOW.

Ms. BORGER: Remember Hillary Clinton?

MATTHEWS: Sure do.

Ms. BORGER: There are still negotiations going on between the Clinton folks
and the Obama folks about the convention, still not resolved about a roll call
vote, but if there is a roll call vote for Hillary Clinton, watch it to occur
in the morning.

MATTHEWS: OK.

Ms. BORGER: Out of prime time when it won't be as big a deal.

MATTHEWS: But if there's a roll call--quickly--and Hillary Clinton comes in,
it's like a photo finish and she just loses to him, right? What would be the
message to the country?

Ms. BORGER: `I'll be back.'

MATTHEWS: Yeah. And in fact, `I'm still here,' I think, maybe. ..."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/01/us/pol...

“Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck,” Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, charged in a statement with which Mr. McCain later said he agreed. “It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong.”....“The McCain campaign was compelled to respond to this outrageous attack because we will not allow John McCain to be smeared by Senator Obama as a racist for offering legitimate criticism,” he said. “We have waited for months with a sick feeling knowing this moment would come because we watched it incur with President Clinton. Say whatever you want about President Clinton, his record on this issue is above reproach.”

and Howard Wolfson from the clinton camp get in his licks...

Howard Wolfson, who was the communications director of the Clinton campaign, said, “The McCain campaign has obviously been watching our primary very closely and recognized how damaging it had been to be tagged with the charge of race baiting.”

In addition to the underlying racism, the ad - by comparing Obama to Spears and Hilton - is basically calling him a girl and a "trashy" one at that. How's Obama supposed to respond to that? Denounce misogyny used against him, but not against Clinton? He's already doing less well than Kerry among white women in Ohio and Florida.

But it's also true that McCain is only using what's in the culture. You could argue that if you want to suggest someone is a throw-away celebrity or a trashy one, you are pretty much limited to young women. "Progressive" Keith Olbermann doesn't run videos mocking Colin Farrell as a slut for all those young "progressive" male viewers of his, does he?

And you'll be happy to know that the WSJ via James Taranto defends McCain from racism charges because:

First of all, the notion that the McCain ad plays to stereotypes of black men as sexual predators is far-fetched. The invidious old stereotype has to do with black men as a threat to white feminine innocence, and it is hard to imagine two less innocent symbols than Hilton and Spears.

See, no racism here because nobody would ever worry about a black man or any other man preying on a couple of sluts like Spears and Hilton. Oh, I'm sorry, their not sluts, they're just "oversexed and/or promiscuous young white women" according to "progressive" Josh Marshall.

Read the Politico article (I know, I know, it's Politico, but it's a good indication, IMO, of what the Village is thinking).

Oh, and McCain's pushback appears to be working. According to the article, the Obama campaign already has its WORM:

But the aftermath of this campaign flashpoint — which began with a McCain ad using Paris Hilton and Britney Spears to paint Obama as a preening rock star — indicated points were scored for the Republican side.

Obama's campaign quickly put out a statement Thursday retracting the candidate's suggestion that McCain had improperly used race, and, while on a conference call with reporters, campaign manager David Plouffe declined repeatedly to revisit any aspect of the question of race.

"We weren't suggesting in any way he was using race as an issue," Plouffe said of McCain, though he didn't explain how Obama’s words could be taken any other way. He also declined to engage speculation that McCain was responding so forcefully to highlight Obama's race.

Did you read the entire Politico article? Because the earth is very scorched, indeed (emphasis mine):

Obama’s aim, in the view of the McCain camp: "to delegitimize any line of attack against him," said McCain aide Steve Schmidt. He said he saw that potential trap being sprung when Obama predicted in Missouri Wednesday that the GOP nominee would attack the Democrat because he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

"I don't [care] whether it helps or hurts us," Schmidt said. "A lie unresponded to becomes the truth."

Obama spokesman Bill Burton said McCain's campaign was "misinterpreting" both the "tenor and the meaning" of Obama's words.

"I think they should probably be a little less paranoid about parsing every word we say and a little more focused on actually addressing the challenges that Americans expect the president of the United States to take on," he said.

To campaign watchers, in fact, Obama's warning Wednesday seemed less a direct attack on McCain than as part of a running effort to cast all attacks on Obama in the worst possible light: as products of ignorance at best and bigotry at worst.

If anybody sees a post—or wants to write one themselves—that manages to take down McCain on this while not succumbing to historical amnesia on the primary, I’d be very glad to see it.

The thing is, I'm not sure that McCain should be 'taken down' on this. McCain is perfectly within his rights to talk about the Obama campaign's race-boating; my criteria is "would McCain have made this commercial if Obama was white?", and if the answer is 'yes' then the McCain campaign is off the hook despite the fact that Obama's race will provide additional subtextual resonance to the point being made by the ad.

Yes the fear of miscegenation is still alive and well in America, and regardless of the white women depicted in the ad, that point remains valid.

But how effective is it? IMO, not very. Liberals, over sensitized to the sounds and sights of racism, will see it and be outraged about it. But the people who would be riled by the threat of a black man against the white women, aren't voting for Obama anyway, so I don't see how this ad is very effective.

Don't forget either, that part of how the GOP has successfully race boated Dems in the past, is portraying the racist dog whistle in such a way, that it has a non-racist explanation.

The Ford ad, for example. The ad was allegedly about his Playboy ways, but it was really about the racism. Or Willie Horton. That was allegedly about the poor judgement of Dukakis, but it was really about the racism. This ad is allegedly about the cult of celebrity, but it's really about the racism.

Do I have any sympathy for Obama though? Hell no. The end result of his race boating campaign was obvious for anyone with half a brain, that charges of racism against the truly egregious attacks by the Repugs, would be ignored in typical "Boy Who Cried Wolf" fashion, and that the resentment over the Clintons treatment during the primaries would be played upon as well.

Another reason why this man should not be our president, is that he isn't very forward looking, he doesn't think through the future consequences of his actions, only about the immedeate benefit.

Bill Clinton for First Dude!!!

I wonder why he picked Hillary Clinton, the first serious woman presidential contender, of all people as no different than the likes of Britney and Paris? Huh:

Today is Obama’s third day back on the campaign trail after his foreign trip and the Illinois senator is showing signs of fatigue. Last night at a fundraiser in Houston, he appeared to mistake his former opponent and current ally, Hillary Clinton, for the controversial pop icon, Britney Spears.

“Now we’ve got ads about Britney and Paris,” Obama said referencing McCain’s new ad comparing his opponent to the young celebrities, Spears and Hilton. “At a time when we’ve got bigger challenges than any time in our history and you’re running ads with Hillary and er – with Britney and ah Paris in it. I mean come on. The American people deserve better.”

Thank God the media was there to explain to us it was just Barack being tired. That's all. [In all honesty, I'm glad that this incident wasn't horribly distorted on the basis of gender the way race has been. It's just quite telling that the media cut Barack some slack here and that he even thought Clinton was in the same league as those two dolts in the first place]

Oh, and speaking of Americans deserving better perhaps Barack should listen to Lambert and provide bullet points, please? Oh, wait, bullet points are racist assassination triggers so obviously that's a "No."

after they lied about that all day yesterday--

"Sen. Barack Obama's chief strategist conceded that the Democratic presidential candidate was referring to his race when he said Republicans were trying to scare voters by suggesting Obama "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills." ..." --- http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Politics/story...

For obvious reasons, if you think about it. Just wait, and your comment will be approved...

[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

Amberglow points to the new McCain ad.
http://www.correntewire.com/lets_help_ob...

Has any candidate in anyone's memory leaned this heavily on satire in their TV ads? Satire has its place on the stump, but in the megabucks/per/second of precious public airwaves, TV ads are reserved for a candidate's core message. Is McCain's core message to HINGE on satire? Admittedly, Obama offers up a ripe target. But with this unserious strategy, McCain demeans himself.

On the plus side for McCain, this suggests further his Paris/Britney comparison was also satire, rather than the allelged attempt to strike fear in the hearts of white parents everywhere.

Ut-oh, doesn't that mean WE are in a lot of trouble?

so what do you think would be a serious campaign strategy for McCain that addresses this issue?

Lambert for Blog President! Or wait, is Leah Blog President?

stay out of Georgia too.