Screw the conversation on race

It’s as if inside the White House the belief in Obama’s inspirational charisma is still such that every time the ugliness of brute politics intrudes, it’s a startling revelation. The president’s cerebral goals aren’t supposed to be jostled by the coarse irrelevance of media bandits and ideological saboteurs. Except they are. Maybe recognition of this fact is what made Bill Clinton, at almost the same moment in his first mid-term elections in 1994, shove aside purists on his team like George Stephanopoulos and return to his devilish former consigliere, Dick Morris. Clinton knew he had to fight fire with fire, or sleaze with sleaze, that was more deft, more cunning.

That’s why this teachable moment is for the teacher himself. The professor-in-chief is in danger of being remembered for being not only the first black president but also the second Woodrow Wilson. When Obama heralds another “teachable moment,” it means he has already made an egregious rookie mistake—like when we held a silly Beer Summit right in the middle of a serious health-care debate. We have arrived at another damaging distraction through the administration’s sloppiness of execution. Even the once-vaunted White House operators could not put the president on the phone with Shirley Sherrod quick enough to short-circuit the flak. It’s time for this gang to start shooting straight and hitting their targets.