A perfect complement to the last post. For good measure, he re-shovels the unadulterated crap shoveled yesterday by Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs about how a line previously delivered by Obama in the explicit context of race magically became non-racial two days ago when he was slightly less explicit. What you’re seeing here is a campaign so desperately worried about their guy having exposed his scummier race-baiting tendencies that they’re willing to lie as shamelessly as they need to in order to try to defuse it. And it’s capped, of course, by the rapidly coalescing talking point that McCain’s the one who introduced race by daring to defend himself. I should have noted that as another new Orwellian rule in yesterday’s post on the NYT editorial. New rule: If you’re insolent enough to try to rebut a bad-faith charge of racism from the left, you’re guilty of bad faith. These are the parameters, please note, of the Great National Conversation on Race that our savior wants us to have.

Update: Speaking of the Times editorial, hot off the presses from Team McCain:

If the shareholders of the New York Times ever wonder why the paper’s ad revenue is plummeting and its share price tanking, they need look no further than the hysterical reaction of the paper’s editors to any slight, real or imagined, against their preferred candidate. This campaign has never engaged in ‘racially tinged attacks,’ and the Obama campaign conceded as much yesterday in a statement clarifying that “Barack Obama in no way believes that the McCain campaign is using race as an issue.”

That the Times made this allegation in a blog post rather than running it on the editorial page indicates that they either knew the charge was bogus or they didn’t have the nerve to make their case in full view of the public. But in their new role as bloggers, the paper’s editors seem to have all the intelligence and reason of the average Daily Kos diarist sitting at home in his mother’s basement and ranting into the ether between games of dungeons and dragons. They also have about as much care for the facts–the “board” has already been forced to append a correction.

Update: More nuance from Axelrod. Sure, he says, Obama obviously was alluding to his race in what he said. And yet … it’s McCain’s fault for injecting it?

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.”…

When pressed to explain the comment, Axelrod told “GMA” it meant, “He’s not from central casting when it comes to candidates for president of the United States. He’s new to Washington. Yes, he’s African-American.”