John Cole writes about…

(I go away for three years, come back, and John Cole is not only making sense, but he’s a really good read?  Is Digby the despotic overlord of Oakland now?)

...the “whitey” tape rumors that are tearing up the rumor mill.  And by “tearing up”, I mean ping-ponging back and forth between Larry Johnson and late night weekend Fox News programming.

I am not worried about any “bombshell,” but I am tired of hearing about one. Right now, we have been subjected to days of hype, and I don’t think that is an accident. It is as if folks are simply spending weeks prepping the ground preparing people to expect a bombshell, they can release some weak nonsense, and then pretend it is a big deal. While the “bombshell” will fizzle, the psyops will have been successful enough to make people think it is a big deal even when it isn’t.

Geraldine Ferraro had one thing right - there is a lot of racial resentment on the part of many white voters towards black Americans, based in no small part on the idea that if black people insist they’re lower on the ladder than white people, any black person being ahead of any white person is de facto evidence that black people are whiny victims and white people are the true downtrodden in America. 

This is indelibly stupid.  But it’s also a powerful argument.

Obama is going to become Blackazoid, the Nubian Avenger, here to right all the perceived wrongs black people illegitimately feel were heaped on them since we solved racism in 1963.  Reparations?  He wants them.  Islam?  Prepare to pay a prayer mat fee for your kids’ next school year.  I can’t wait to hear the shit we didn’t even know was racist - did you know Obama wants to put elastic bands on all our pants?  And ban straws?

Blackness is about to become the best privilege imaginable, and stories of disadvantaged white people the new currency of the Republican realm. 

Michelle Obama engaging in an alleged rant against “whitey” is just the tip of the iceberg - learn now to fear your new Negro overlords. 

(NOTE: CNN is reporting that Hillary will concede tonight, but Camp Clinton says CNN/AP got it wrong: “Senator Clinton will not concede the nomination this evening.”)

I’m a huge fan of former U.S. Senate candidate Jim Neal fan, as Blenders and Pandas know, but I can’t get behind a “reconciliation ticket.” Jim endorsed Obama, but he believes this is the pairing that will ensure success in November. He makes his case at Daily Kos and BlueNC. We report, you decide. A snippet.

Now that the Presidential primary season is winding down after months and millions of votes cast, it’s now time to set our focus on November and winning back the Presidency.

Both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama have energized millions of new voters, and all of them are committed to seeing a Democrat in the White House in January. 

Certainly, there has been a great deal of back-and-forth bickering between Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton’s campaigns – and each candidate has millions of passionate supporters. But now it’s time for unity – and I believe the best way to unite the party is to unite the two strongest candidates our party has ever seen.

That’s why I support an Obama-Clinton ticket.

I hope you’ll join me by adding your voice to those calling for an Obama-Clinton ticket. You can add your signature at DraftObamaClinton.com.

The DraftObamaClinton.com web site gives regular citizens a way to weigh in on the VP selection process.  Senator Obama has said he will have to make his vice presidential choice quickly after the primaries end this week.

Citizen involvement and grassroots organization is a cornerstone of Senator Obama’s campaign, and frankly, a foundation of our democracy.  We’ve seen millions of new voters involved this campaign season. Their voices make a difference, and that’s what DraftObamaClinton.com is all about.

You can rank your pick for VP here. Meanwhile, my thoughts are below the fold.

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I didn’t watch cable news most of Sunday—has the MSM in the U.S. mentioned this? From the UK Telegraph:

Hillary Clinton will be offered a dignified exit from the presidential race and the prospect of a place in Barack Obama’s cabinet under plans for a “negotiated surrender” of her White House ambitions being drawn up by Senator Obama’s aides.

The former First Lady would get the chance to pilot Mr Obama’s reforms of the American healthcare system if she agrees to clear the path to his nomination as Democratic presidential candidate.

Senior figures in the Obama camp have told Democrat colleagues that the offer to Mrs Clinton of a cabinet post as health secretary or to steer new legislation through the Senate will be a central element of their peace overtures to the New York senator.

...The Obama camp, however, remains nervous about Mrs Clinton’s intentions and ambitions, and is preparing a face-saving package that will allow her to continue to play a role in health care reform, which has been her signature issue for more than a decade. Despite pressure from some Clinton allies, Mr Obama and his advisers do not wish to ask her to be his vice-presidential running mate. “They will talk to her,” one Democrat strategist close to senior figures in the Obama camp told The Sunday Telegraph. “They will give her the respect she deserves. She will get something to do with health care, a cabinet post or the chance to lead the legislation through the Senate.”

It was simply time to cut his ties to the Trinity United Church of Christ. (AP):

Barack Obama has resigned his 20 year membership in the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago in the aftermath of inflammatory remarks by his longtime pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and more recent fiery remarks at the church by another minister.

Obama campaign communications director Robert Gibbs said Obama had submitted a letter of resignation to the church and would discuss his decision in a session with reporters later Saturday.

It happened “over the last few days,” Gibbs said. Messages left for a church spokeswoman in Chicago were not immediately returned Saturday afternoon.

...On Thursday, Obama was again forced to reject another man of the cloth, this time Pfleger, who made racially charged comments mocking Clinton in a guest sermon at Trinity United Church of Christ, Obama’s church.

Obama made it clear he wasn’t happy with the comments — in which Pfleger pretended he was Clinton crying over “a black man stealing my show” — and said he was “deeply disappointed in Father Pfleger’s divisive, backward-looking rhetoric, which doesn’t reflect the country I see or the desire of people across America to come together in common cause.”

It’s an abject lesson that mixing church and politics can inevitably get any pol in an endless amount of trouble. From McCain sidling up to Hagee/Parsley or Obama and the latest remarks by Father Michael Pfleger, it’s a crap shoot to inject your faith into “your game” of political ambition.

In Obama’s case, and for the Democratic party generally, the courting of the faith based vote has been purposeful—to make inroads into these communities and voters. Wearing faith on one’s sleeve was thought to be the best way to counter the belief that the Democratic party is a bunch of heathens, atheists, paganists, Satanists, you name it - all trying to persecute “Christians.”

However, pastors aren’t beholden to any focus group or poll; they don’t have to guard what they say—it’s inevitable that blowback, explanations and apologies can’t outweigh the endless MSM bleating about all of it.

Quite frankly, with the economy crumbling, an endless military action, and corruption at the highest levels of government, focusing on religious clerics and their misguided, inflammatory remarks is a waste of air time.