The Wolves Den: McCain, Schmidt Fully Playing The Race Card Now

What is horribly disturbing, more than the decrepit tone of the McCain campaign’s attacks in their viral video scorched earth campaign, is how Steve Schmidt — beginning yesterday — is now fully playing the race card.  In this latest salvo, in a piece titled Fact Check, Obama is likened to a wolf by way of the consecutive frames above– a wolf going after sweet, innocent Sara Palin.

Returning to a motif that is not exactly new, Schmidt hits the racial trifecta matching expressions, orientation and even shadows to activate stereotypes of animalism, the angry black man, and the black man lusting to dominate the white woman with this one hit piece.

The word play is also curious here:  AS HE DROPS.  If you say the words to yourself or just quickly, it can sound like AS SHE DROPS.  (Of course, the scenario is spelled out fully in the next frame.)

This resonates on three levels simultaneous, one political, one sexual and one violent.  Politically, the meme is insurance against Palin starting to lose popularity.  Given the case, the campaign is setting up to blame Obama (and the press) for “dropping her” or tearing her apart.  On the latter two counts, however, her drop is imagined to occur as either the victim of random black violence or direct racial/sexual violence (a la O.J.).

And oh yeah, look how close “she” is to “the wolf’s” mouth.