Yesterday morning, while watching Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama on Meet the Press, we thought to ourselves, “Here we go. How many conservative pundits are going to say this is because Obama is black?” Tom Brokaw clearly had the same idea, and asked the former Bush Secretary of State about it. Sure enough, the Drudge Report shortly had three headlines hinting the decision was racially motivated. But after that, not too many people came out and made the point. It was only extreme conservative commentators Rush Limbaugh and Pat Buchanan that made the connection directly:
• “Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about race,” Limbaugh wrote in an e-mail. “OK, fine. I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed. I’ll let you know what I come up with.” [Politico]
• “Alright, we gotta ask a question,” Buchanan declared on MSNBC, “look, would Colin Powell be endorsing Obama if he were a white liberal Democrat…” [HuffPo]
George Will also came close, but stopped short of chalking the whole endorsement up to race. What did you guys think?
