Those who hear the phantom dog whistles of racism

Mark Steyn:

...

And so it goes with American racism: The less there is, the more extravagantly the racism-awareness lobby patrols its beat. The Walmart carding clerks of the media are ever more alert to those who "appear to be" racist. On MSNBC, Chris Matthews declared this week that Republicans use "Chicago" as a racist code word. Not to be outdone, his colleague Lawrence O'Donnell pronounced "golf" a racist code word. When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell observed that Obama was "working to earn a spot on the PGA tour," O'Donnell brilliantly perceived that subliminally associating Obama with golf is racist, because the word "golf" is subliminally associated with "Tiger Woods," and the word "Tiger" is not-so-subliminally associated with cocktail waitress Jamie Grubbs, nightclub hostess Rachel Uchitel, lingerie model Jamie Jungers, former porn star Holly Sampson, etc, etc. So by using the word "golf" you're sending a racist dog whistle that Obama is a sex addict who reverses over fire hydrants.

...
On the matter of those racist dog whistles all these middle-age white liberals keep hearing, the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto put it very well: "The thing we adore about these dog-whistle kerfuffles is that the people who react to the whistle always assume it's intended for somebody else," he wrote. "The whole point of the metaphor is that if you can hear the whistle, you're the dog." And a very rare breed at that. What frequency does a Mitch McConnell speech have to be ringing inside your head for even the most racially obsessed Caucasian NBC anchorman to hear the words "PGA tour" as "deep-rooted white insecurities about black male sexuality"? That's way beyond dog-whistling, and somewhere between barking mad and frothing rabid. 

Still, now that "golf" and "Chicago" – along with "Clint," "Medicare," "debt," "jobs," "foreign policy" and "quantitative easing" – are all racist code words, are there any words left that aren't racist? Yes, here's one: 

"Negrohood." 

Not familiar with it? New York Assembly candidate Ben Akselrod used it the other day in a campaign mailer to Brooklyn electors, arguing that his opponent "has allowed crime to go up over 50 percent in our negrohood so far this year." 

Like Messrs Dunn, Matthews and O'Donnell, Ben Akselrod is frighteningly pasty white, and a Democrat, and so presumably has highly refined racial antennae. Had a campaign staffer suggested that Mr. Akselrod's opponent was wont to wear "plus-fours" and had a "niblick," obviously such naked racism would have been deleted in the first draft. But the more subtly allusive "negrohood" apparently just slipped through. 

Mr. Akselrod now says it was a "typo." Could happen to anyone. You're typing "neighborhood," and you leave out the "i," and the "h" and "b," and the "o" and "r" get mysteriously inverted. Either that, or your desktop came with Al Sharpton's spellcheck. And then nobody at the campaign office reading through the mailer spotted it. Odd.
...

The new "racism" is anything that can be considered critical of Obama and Democrats.   They have become so intellectually sloppy and inept that they attempt to shut down debate with phony cries of racism rather than try to engage on the issues.  But the issues are also a problem for them and that is why they are trying so hard to talk about phantom racism than the economy and jobs.  Ye they are the ones who hear the mention of Food Stamps and Welfare and automatically assume that the conversation is about blacks even though they are a minority of the people using those benefits.

You get the impression that MSNBC had a staff meeting before the RNC and decided that what ever the subject it would be deemed racist.  Certainly logic could not have driven them off that cliff.