My fears that the political news media and public intellectuals would push the Democratic nomination race into a race-vs.-gender competition have become reality with nauseating rapidity. Adam Nagourney, writing the best piece I have seen on the matter, does his professional best to maintain balanced coverage of both Clinton and Obama camps; but it is hard (for me, at least) to not conclude that the Clinton campaign - both the candidate and her surrogates - has not acted at their best. Much of the problem, in my view, is not that they are deliberately making race an issue, but that their actions and comments are ridiculously racially biased in reflecting white privilege and in assumptions about black voters.

Consider Geraldine Ferraro's quote from Nagourney's story:

“As soon anybody from the Clinton campaign opens their mouth in a way that could make it seem as if they were talking about race, it will be distorted,” Mrs. Ferraro said. “The spin will be put on it that they are talking about race. The Obama campaign is appealing to their base and their base is the African-American community. What they are trying to do is move voters from Clinton by distorting things. What have they got to lose?”

Ferraro is wrong on at least one thing: the base of Senator Obama's support has not been the Africa-American community. For the past year, Obama has built his campaign from a wide coalition of forces spanning age, gender, race, ethnicity and class. But he has also been at pains to convince African-Americans that he is a legitimate candidate. Remember the whole "Is he black enough?" thing? Indeed, political observers have long assumed black voters supported Clinton by default due to long-standing ties the Clintons have had with them. Yet Ferraro assumes that Obama's biracial identity makes him the default candidate of black voters.

So what did the Clinton campaign "open its mouth" about? Let's go back to the original sin, Senator Clinton's remark about President Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King. I don't think Clinton was attempting to demean King - indeed, she acknowledges his leadership and bravery. Her problem was one inherent to her privileged position as a prominent white person with elite biases.

Well, and historical blindness. People forget that Senator Lyndon Johnson was instrumental in weakening the Civil Rights Bill of 1957 in concessions to Southern objections in the Senate, effectively setting the struggle back another seven years. If King, Rosa Parks, Medgar Evers and thousands of other citizens had not kept up the pressure, that weak legislation would have been the last word on the matter for at least a generation. So, sure, it takes politicians to get legislation passed, but without sustained organized pressure from the people, don't count on it.

Page 13 is now ready for viewing at Modern Tales.

This one features a corgi. I plan to put more corgis into "Wanderlost" for no better reason than I really like corgis. And boxers, boston terriers, and pugs, mostly because they have smushed-in faces and hyper personalities. Corgis are the true clowns of the dog world.

In other news, I am a dork.