Can They Just Give it a Rest?

Now that "Tar Baby-gate" has blown away into the backhills of the Berkshires, The Boston Globe has begun to paint Romney as a rascist.

Hosting a cocktail reception in South Carolina for local Republicans over the weekend, Romney joked about the attitude of some in the South toward the Civil War, referring to the region's views that the conflict was one of ``Northern aggression" against the South.

The article here by the Globe never actually quotes the joke, only paraphrases it. This should be a major tipoff to the reader. The globe was very quick to fully quote the Tar-Baby comment, why not this? Maybe because they are reaching for straws.?

The Globe then tries to link Tar-baby gate, with other comments by Romney:

Romney talked of baseball player Johnny Damon's leaving the Red Sox to join the Yankees. Romney told them that he and the audience have common ground: They both hate Yankees.

Heavens No!! He used the word Yankee!!

Going on:

``It was just a passing reference," Fehrnstrom said. ``Everywhere the governor speaks, he tells a joke."

Romney's remarks were made a week after he apologized for using the expression ``tar baby" when referring to the political risks involved in his taking charge of the Big Dig project.

The phrase is considered a racial epithet by some, although the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the expression as ``something from which it is nearly impossible to extricate oneself."

Wow! What in the world are they implying? Somehow a Yankee joke proves a pattern of rascism?

To my eyes the read-between-the-lines implications of this article are obvious and sickening. Despite the fact this double standard has been covered in other places, liberals spray this rascist name-calling like airfreshner in truckstop bathroom. If we rewind back to the 1994 campaign against Kennedy, we see playing the rascist accusations against Romney become a historical precedent. This was covered in the Weekly Standard:

ROMNEY KNOWS FIRSTHAND how his religion can be exploited in negative campaigning. When he ran against Ted Kennedy in 1994, then-congressman Joe Kennedy, the senator's nephew, said Romney was "a member of the white boys' club,"

Is this a conspiracy? I am not saying that. Is it laying a foundation for the Dems to work against Romney? Perhaps. The opposition knows the power of subtilty and making impressions. They know a small comment here and a small comment there can snowball into something big.