Memo From a Poison Penn

Colbert I. King - Memo From a Poison Penn - washingtonpost.com

Say you find yourself seated on the train behind two white supremacists who are beside themselves over the possibility that Barack Obama could become America's first black president.

They are so fired up, they fail to notice you.

The men are discussing the urgent need to derail Obama's candidacy.

The obvious strategist of the two says that Obama's defeat can be brought about by hitting him hard, where it hurts the most.

We've got to launch an attack, he declares, on Obama's "lack of American roots." Paint him as a guy with an exotic background who's present in mainstream society but isn't really a part of it.

He asserts, with a snicker, that Obama has "a very strong weakness." We'll drive home the argument, he says, that Obama's "roots to basic American values and culture are at best limited."

Our job, he goes on, is to get "most Americans -- the invisible Americans" so agitated about Obama that they become eager to stick up for what they regard as their American heritage...