Hoisted By One's Own Petard

The title of this particular blog entry comes from Shakespeare and his play, Hamlet. If you don't know, hoisted by one's own petard basically means that someone blew themselves up while trying to make a bomb that was intended to hurt someone else. When Barack Obama charged that John McCain would use "race" as means to garner votes, I think Barack Obama hoisted himself on his own petard (See Video Commentary).

He thought he could charge McCain with something that McCain has never done. In fact, McCain has taken Republicans to task over using advertising that even looked like "race" was being used (See Full Story).

I think that Obama's comments about John McCain and the Republicans using "how he looks" was an unprovoked shot across McCain's bow. It was a warning that "the Obama campaign" is prepared and will use race in this campaign in the same fashion that Obama and his surrogates used it against Hillary. In a way, Obama was preparing his supporters to "stretch" anything that McCain or his campaign says into some negative racial context. Based on how Bill Clinton's comment of "fairytale" was turned into a racist remark, the Obama campaign has proven that they are well prepared to do so.

But, Obama didn't count on McCain turning the tables on him and exposing, to America, his seedy plans for winning the White House. I think America will see Obama's comments for what it is: just standard item in his unique political bag of dirty tricks. For this reason, Obama may just have blown himself up!