Obama’s Cousin’s Dogwalker Makes Inappropriate Comment

Ok, not really. But at the rate things are going I won’t be terribly surprised if we see that headline in the near future. We’re well accustomed to the media being ready to pounce and inform us when political candidates or office holders do or say something perceived as a “gaffe” out on the trail. Perhaps candidates are getting more politically astute. Or maybe we’ve just weeded out all of them who trip themselves up regularly. Whatever the cause, we have long since arrived at the point in Campaign 08 where we are no longer treated to the Senators themselves saying embarrassing, damaging or just downright stupid things. Instead we have reporters, bloggers and talking heads treating us to the shocking – Shocking I Say! – missteps of their wives, their husbands, the preacher at their church, their tax attorney from 1987 or, in this case, the college kid who is setting up the chairs when their wife speaks in a gymnasium.

While the crowd was indeed diverse, some students at the event questioned the practices of Mrs. Obama’s event coordinators, who handpicked the crowd sitting behind Mrs. Obama. The Tartan’s correspondents observed one event coordinator say to another, “Get me more white people, we need more white people.” To an Asian girl sitting in the back row, one coordinator said, “We’re moving you, sorry. It’s going to look so pretty, though.”

Yes, this report came from The Tartan. For those of you too tragically un-hip or unfamiliar with the ivory towers of journalism to know better, this is the college newspaper of Carnegie-Mellon. That passing comment came well down in an article covering Michelle Obama’s speaking engagement there to fire up supporters. Be that as it may, this astounding revelation caused no less an august source than The Weekly Standard to conclude:

The Obama campaign discriminates against people of color, and their own supporters no less, in what is presumably a misguided pander to white voters.

Obviously all of the campaigns do this exact thing. Selection of who gets to sit behind the speaker has risen to an art form in campaigns. Since the cameras will be pointed at the speaker’s face, those sitting behind them show up in the key shots picked up by the media. Of course, every candidate wants that shot to include as much diversity as possible, sending out the subtle message, “See? We’re popular with everyone! White, black, old, young, male, female, three legged sheepdogs… you name it.”

Unlike the student setting up this event, however, when you advance in your career as a campaign worker and actually start getting paid, you learn not to say idiotic things out loud like, “Give me more white people!” Still, this is yet another of the all too common cases of a bored, frustrated commentariat looking for something – anything – to report on as this endless campaign season drags on. Coming up next week… a groundbreaking interview with the neighbor of one of John McCain’s former babysitters who actually prefers chunky peanut butter over smooth. As you shall doubtless realize, this will prove indisputably that John McCain hates peanut farmers and will be a danger to America if elected.