Obama simply messed up a campaign swing by stepping on his message. But his most ardent supporters had to turn the incident into some sort of racial Gotterdammerung. Obama had it right later when he said it was all “not a big deal.”

But this absurd controversy is surely a harbinger of greater inanities to come. As even some Democrats in Washington concede, Obama can’t run on his record. That’s why he’s running against a “do-nothing Congress” and unfairness in the tax code. That’s simply not exciting enough for his supporters, particularly given the fizzling of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

And nothing excites the base of the Democratic Party — or gets more free media — than wildly implausible hysterics over racism, even when there’s so little evidence to support the claim…

But for reasons that say a lot more about the weaknesses of the first black president, liberals yearn to hear racism where it isn’t to make this campaign into something more exciting than a referendum on Obama.