Gibbs: "Michael Steele’s problem isn’t the race card, it’s the credit card"

By GottaLaff

Today's Quickie:

Gibbs called Steele’s remark that criticism of his leadership is motivated by race “silly” during a meeting with reporters.

“I think Michael Steele’s problem isn’t the race card, it’s the credit card,” Gibbs added.

How's that Voyeury Scandaly thing goin' for ya?


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Steele Blames Racism for Criticism

So the man and the organization that has repeatedly accused others of playing the race card... plays the race card? Via Taegan-

In an interview with ABC News, RNC Chairman Michael Steele suggested that race is an issue in the intense criticism he's facing.

Said Steele: "The honest answer is yes, it just is. Barack Obama has a slimmer margin. We all -- a lot of folks do. I mean, it's a different role for me to play and others to play. And that's just the reality of it. But you take that as part of the nature of it... My view of politics is much more grassroots-oriented. It's not old-boy-network-oriented. And so I tend to come at it a little bit stronger, a little bit more streetwise, if you will. That's rubbed some feathers the wrong way."

Steele also said he has no intention to resign.

McCain campaign: 'Oh, we can't do that. That was playing the race card,'

By GottaLaff

It's hard to believe, but the McCain campaign tried to show some restraint in their anti-Obama ads. No, I'm not kidding:

In an extended interview with TIME, Davis detailed what might have been in the campaign ad war — and what self-censorship the McCain staff imposed on themselves regarding the issue of race.

Fred Davis III was the advertising whiz that John McCain has used for almost all of his campaign media:

...Davis is wistful at the missed opportunities of the McCain campaign. "I made a list once, which no one will ever see, of all the reasons that my hands were tied on this campaign," he says. "And I've never had a list this long." [...]

"One of the big hands that I felt was tied behind my back was [that] so many things — like [Obama's record on] crime — you would logically do were perceived as 'Oh, we can't do that. That was playing the race card,' " he says, adding that the campaign created a whole series of crime attacks against Obama that were never aired. "Reverend Wright? 'Oh, can't do that; they'll say we are playing the race card.' [William] Ayers? For the longest time, 'Oh, can't do that. We're playing the race card.'"

Yes, if there's one thing we know, it's that they never, ever played the race card.

The photographs of Obama that the ads used, for instance, which often showed Obama elongated and smiling, were carefully selected, he recalls. "We chose them with only one thing in mind, and that is to not make them bad pictures because bad pictures would be seen as racist," Davis says. "How many shots in their ads did they use a John McCain [photo] looking decent and smiling?" He says the campaign also agonized over the music in the ads, paying special care not to play drum-heavy tracks that could be seen as an African tribal reference. "We were held to a totally different standard," he says. [...]

Says Davis: "I never saw anybody play the race card but the Obama campaign."

How does he sleep at night?

[F]ormer Seinfeld actor Jason Alexander confronted him. "He basically wanted to know how I sleep at night."

I guess when you'd spent as much time with Gramm-pa McCain as Davis did, it would have been easy to doze off.