There has always been a measured slickness in how Barack Obamas political operation has handled race, the third rail in politics. They have taken the guards off the rail and made an old obstacle an instrument of fashion. And they have done so with an instinct for the genuine and legitimate guilt surrounding race in American life. As political maneuver, it is a thing of grace in some ways. At least until the thing turns shameless and expedient. Bill Clinton got the first dose of the treatment, when he protested that Obamas credentials as an anti-war stalwart were the biggest...
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