Racial Sensitivity Could Hurt Obama!

Perhaps nothing stuck out more in last night's presidential debate than the "That one" quote uttered by John McCain when referring to Obama being the "one" who voted on a Bush/Cheney spending bill. But what exactly did McCain mean? Was it a singular version of the racist "those people" idiom? Ezra Klein has shed some light on this, and for the most part I agree:

In both [debates], McCain's most memorable tics were exhibitions of contempt for Barack Obama. In the first encounter, he couldn't bear to look at Obama, and he used "What Senator Obama doesn't understand" the way other people use "um." In the second, he dismissed him in the language a busy mother uses for her third child, as if he couldn't be bothered to recall the youngster's name.

Obama would be wise to advise his campaign and even publicly remark that McCain was not being racist, but I think pundits alike should hit the airwaves and talk about how disrespectful McCain is for not addressing his counterpart with more civility.