Today on dailykos we had eight (and counting) dairies and two front page stories on the Cokie Roberts comments about Obama's Hawaiian vacation. First there was
Is Obama Foreign??? He's Visiting Hawaii!!!
Actually, that was second. The first one was
What kind of money do they use there? Hawaii IS America!
Then there was
Cokie Roberts's Homestate is French
and
Media Stop Using "Exotic" as a code word for "Not American Enough
and
Mark Halperin and Cokie Roberts
and
Sen Akaka (D-HI) response to Cokie's stupidity... Write NPR Please and tell them to send her to Fox
and
Culture Shock
and
Cokie, Kiss My Foreign Ass
and
Breaking: Obama Vacations in America!!!!
and
Akaka schools Cokie Roberts on Hawaii
and, finally,
On vacations
Exclamation points ran wild, and so did the comments. There was this
Cokie's greatest fear is that with the Obamas on vacation, there won't be anyone around to pick the cotton. Mercy me, that crop is ready!
and
Cokie - bitch
Yeah, this one even got a rec.
Cokie was doing political analysis, not stating her own opinion. It was very bad political analysis. I really don't think she has polling that tells her it would help Obama more if he vacationed in Myrtle Beach instead of Hawaii, so she was just making this up.
She did not say that a Hawaiian vacation diminishes her own opinion of Barack Obama. Now it is possible that she is projecting her own opinion onto the American public, but it is very difficult to prove such a claim.
Here is why this really matters. The Obama campaign is going to face a lot of racist nonsense from the McCain campaign in the next few months. Railing against the racism of Cokie Roberts (even if you are right about it) gives away a lot of credibility on this issue. Let's save it for the vicious stuff that is to come and ignore Cokie's attempts to play the clueless travel agent.
Everybody take a deep breath.