However, the race for the presidency has given some more reasons to look down on America. This time, their criticisms aren’t aimed solely at George W. Bush, but the very people who are crying because people don’t like us anymore.

The 2008 US election has all the makings of a Greek tragedy, in which noble heroes and heroines are forced to follow a course to catastrophe, divinely preordained as punishment for sins and blunders committed by their forefathers in the dim and distant past.

If this description sounds too grandiose, consider yesterday's results from the Pennsylvania primary. The outcome seemed to be precisely calibrated by the gods to maximize the agony of the Democrats. It gave Hillary Clinton just the support she needed to stay firmly in contention, but not quite enough to turn the tide in her favour.

Worse still, this result underlined the fear that senior Democrats have long been aware of, but have never dared to express in public: America may not yet be ready to elect a black President.

– Anatole Kaletsky, The Times of London, 4/24/08

To make matters worse, the Democrat presidential campaign is bringing out the very racial antagonism they consistently (and politically) accuse Republicans of.

House Democratic Whip James Clyburn, of South Carolina and the highest ranking black in Congress, also said he has heard speculation that Clinton is staying in the race only to try to derail Obama and pave the way for her to make another White House run in 2012.

“I heard something, the first time yesterday (in South Carolina), and I heard it on the (House) floor today, which is telling me there are African Americans who have reached the decision that the Clintons know that she can’t win this. But they’re hell-bound to make it impossible for Obama to win” in November, Clyburn told Reuters in an interview.

So according to The Times, if “America may not yet be ready to elect a black President” and the Clintons are now sabotaging the primary to keep their door open for the future, just what does that say about Hillary and the Democrat Party? If their attacks on Obama are race-based, then maybe the lie they’ve been living for decades has been exposed and the damage done to their standing with the black community has yet to be felt in full.

For years Democrats have used the black community (and their votes) as a wedge against Republicans. Every time the race card could be used against a conservative candidate, it would be. Something John McCain should be prepared for should Obama squeeze through the Clinton barbed wire. But most Democrats believed THEY were above the stench of racism.

Let’s not forget Michelle Obama’s college thesis, in which she lamented her feeling isolated by her white liberal Princeton peers and professoriate.   Continued...