I’ll never be a fan but he’s done bang-up work this week on this subject, at no point more so than here. Daschle, as you’ll see, is part of the denialist wing of Obama’s team: No sirree, not so much as a whiff of race in his comment about McCain wanting voters to focus on the fact that he doesn’t look like the guy on the dollar bill. The campaign must have been late in circulating yesterday’s talking points because the denialist camp no longer includes Obama himself. Ah well. Too late now anyway.

The racial debate comes in the first eight minutes; it’s worth watching, but if you can’t spare the time, here’s the transcript. Note Graham’s zinger about how, for a guy who insists his opponents have nothing to say about the issues, Barry O sure seems reluctant to find out firsthand by agreeing to any town halls. Money quote: “We’re not going to run a campaign like he did in the primary. Every time somebody brings up a challenge to who you are and what you believe, ‘You’re a racist.’ That’s not going to happen in this campaign.” Tangentially related exit question: Isn’t the biggest knock on Obama’s Berlin speech simply that he squandered such an amazing opportunity? I was thinking today, when was the last time any politician from any country had a stage as big as that? When Bush gave his speech on the aircraft carrier, maybe? He had a global audience; he could have said anything, used it to advance any cause or deliver any important message dear to his heart. And what he chose to do with his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity was … rewrite “We Are the World” in prosaic prose decorated with “wall” metaphors so pedestrian they would have embarrassed a fourth-grader. Carpe diem, Cicero.