Letting the racists out of the closet

(No, I'm not going to make a gay marriage joke here...)

To absolutely no one's surprise, now that Barack Obama has become the Democrat's presumptive nominee for the presidential election this fall, the racist wing of the Republican right have been allowed to ooze out from their resting places and start their attacks on the Illinois Senator. This is understandable; the GOP has wholeheartedly embraced racism as part of their political strategy since 1948, and their efforts to paint themselves as tolerant have fooled no one.

In fact, the only thing that's surprising to me (so far) about Mr. Obama's nomination is how blatant the Republicans are willing to use racism in a desperate drive to save John McCain's doomed campaign (or at least until Diebold gets their hands on the results).

Consider today's example, which Matt Stoller echoes my thoughts by filing this in the "remarkable but not surprising" category -- available today at the Texas Republican Convention:

I suppose we should be thankful that the Republicans aren't snapping up Obama sock monkey dolls and Obama/Curious George T-shirts yet. But that's only because the makers of those "humorous" tasteless products are too busy fending off legal problems to shill their wares to their fellow racist righties.

As Bette Davis said, "Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride." And we're all stuck here until November at the earliest...