My mom is from a politically influential in Ohio. Her father, an immigrant from Italy, was a county prosecutor in Cleveland. His younger brother was the mayor for years. All three of her brothers were judges—the oldest was the chief justice for the state's supreme court. Her first cousin was the state's attorney general. One of her nephews is an appellate court judge, another nephew is a city councilman. One of my mother's nieces is running for judge this election (If she wins the primary next week, my cousin is almost certain to win the general election.).
So when my mother expresses a doubt about a Democrat, I usually listen a little more closely than when Max Schmuckatelly says the same thing. Yesterday morning, she told me that she's afraid of the outcome of Ohio's March 4 primary. Her big fear is that if Sen. Barack Obama, D-IL, wins big next week and becomes a virtual lock for the nomination, then he will be killed—"just like Bobby Kennedy," she said.
That fear, one that I really hadn't considered since last year when Mr. Obama first announced his candidacy, was reinforced when I was reading the New York Times this morning. The story echoed one that appeared Friday in the Washington Post. A quick look at the blogosphere, and it's all over the place. When I asked my mother why the idea occurred to her, she said that she'd heard it from "somewhere," which in her way means that one of her brother's said it.
The notion of Mr. Obama's being a target seems so crazy to me that I'd sooner believe that President Bush is planning a coup before November.
The fact that it's being said—and has legs in some pretty credible news outlets—seems to me to indicate that race and its ugly twin racism still play an visceral role in American politics. Add Fox's Bill O'Reilly's "investigation" into the need to lynch Mr. Obama's wife, Michelle, and one would think this is 1968 not 2008.
Won't the goddam 60s ever end?
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