Almost to the very end of the race, Clinton looked to racial politics to swing the 800-plus Democratic superdelegates to her. On April 30, the week before the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, she gave an interview to Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly. He asked about the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, whose controversial “God damn America” remarks had just erupted into the news. Clinton said, “I’m going to leave it up to voters … but I wouldn’t have stayed in that church. I take offense at it. I think it’s offensive and outrageous, and I’m going to express my opinion. Others can express theirs.” (Clinton went on to win more than 60 percent of white Democrats in Indiana.)

In their detailed campaign book Game Change, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann reported that Clinton was “obsessed” (their word) with rumors of a videotape of Michelle Obama denouncing “whitey” in a sermon at Wright’s church. Reporters who covered that campaign had that story repeatedly shopped to them by a high-level Clinton aide.

In their minds, members of the Clinton team surely never thought of themselves as inciting racial divisions. They believed they were merely anticipating Republican incitement. In the face of impending right-wing racism, what choice did liberals have but to rally around the white candidate, in pure self-defense? (I heard this argument myself from a famous movie director and generous Clinton donor at a dinner party in 2008.) It was a highly convenient self-exculpatory argument. I’m not myself suggesting that Barack Obama is an alien with no right to sit in Washington’s chair … but other people will think so, and so what choice do I have but to urge the media to work harder to find a tape of Obama’s wife denouncing white people?