AP: Palin Attack 'Racially Tinged'

The Associated Press, in an analysis of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's recent comments about William Ayers and Rev. Wright, offered a strong rebuke of the attacks:

(Palin's) attack was unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret.

...The fact is that when racism creeps into the discussion, it serves a purpose for McCain. As the fallout from Wright's sermons showed earlier this year, forcing Obama to abandon issues to talk about race leads to unresolved arguments about America's promise to treat all people equally.

The AP isn't known to be some overly-sensitive, bleeding-heart operation. If they are hearing the "dog whistle," it must be pretty loud.

The piece goes on to discuss McCain's propensity to appear after the fact, hat in hand, professing regret for mistakes like the Keating Five, his opposition to the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, and his stand on the Confederate flag, and wonders if this will be another such case.

I say we give McCain his forgiveness, take him at his word on his regret. What we shouldn't do is give him four years to compile things for us to regret.

Keith Olbermann brought up the AP charge in his "Special Comment" last night, as he offered a rebuttal to Palin's charges.

Caleb Howe, Christina Cedeno, Tom Fitzsimmons, and I will be doing live debate commentary tonight on a special episode of Unusable Signal. Click Here to listen live at 9pm, or to hear the archive afterwards.