THE BARREL HAS NO BOTTOM. It's come to this: the geniuses at National Review are parsing the hell out of Obama's statements that allude to the perfectly plain-to-the-non-brain-damaged fact that a black Democratic Presidential candidate is unusual and may excite negative feelings among certain honkies [cue 'Dueling Banjos'].

Peter Kirsanow marvels that Obama "suggests that certain Americans are intrinsically racist, and those Americans aren't just confined to political opponents." Kirsanow is one of the very, very few people of color I have heard from who is offended by the very notion that white racism exists, which explains why Bush appointed him to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

As for the house honkies, they seem especially enraged by Obama's crack that he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills" -- again, to the mentally complete, an uncontroversial statement. Jay Nordlinger clears his throat, retucks his shirt, says "Um, there's actually only one president on the dollar bill," then retires to the locker room for his wedgie. Yeah, adds Jason Lee Steorts, and what about when Obama said, "Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face"? "Nobody thinks... Well, no; lots of people think Bush and McCain have some 'real' answers to some challenges, and lots of people think Barack Obama's answers to the same challenges are mistaken. There are millions of such people, in fact." Then he retires to the locker room, etc.

After a barrage of this crap, Obama surrenders to custom and sends a spokesperson to tell people it's not about race, and Amy Holmes becomes excited and analogical:

This reminds me of that game one plays with children where you cover your face with your hands and tease, "You can't see me! You can't see me!" They will giggle and shriek, "Yes, I can! You're right there!" Children love this game and will play for hours. Apparently, the Obama campaign believes we will, too.

Sometimes a metaphor is not immediately obvious because it is especially crafty, but much more often it is not obvious because it sucks as a metaphor. Besides, don't kids do rainbow parties instead of this shit anymore?

At this point "The Dollar Bill Statement" has become a full-blown scandal at National Review, and soon we may expect them to predict serious electoral repercussions. "Not content with mere insinuations of racism," says Kirsanow, "the Obama campaign publically signals their belief that we're galactically stupid." Wonder where they got that idea?

People say this campaign is especially exciting, and I have to agree. It's only July and already I fail to see how these people can get any more ridiculous. But I know they'll find a way!

UPDATE. Some Haloscan weirdness; comments appear to have been deleted; feel free to resubmit. I took advantage of the confusion to delete an italic tag and fix a typo.