OK.

Josh Marshall drops the gauntlet...

Try To Explain This

…he inveighs, offering a video link. Since I'm a dial-up kind of guy (the tip jar is to your right), I prefer transcripts, which Steve Benen obligingly provides...

...the video shows a report asking the former president earlier today, “What does it say about Barack Obama that it takes two of you to beat him?”

Bill Clinton responds, “Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice, in ‘84 and ‘88, and he ran a good campaign. And Sen. Obama’s run a good campaign here; he’s run a good campaign everywhere. He’s a good candidate with a good organization.”

Explain that? I think it's pretty clear. Bill Clinton is saying that in the fairly brief history of the modern Democratic delegate selection process, serious African American candidates who wage serious campaigns in South Carolina have done very well. If there's an implication that because there are so many black voters in the South Carolina Democratic Party, and because historically black folk seem likely to vote for good black candidates with good organizations, a good black candidate might have and advantage in South Carolina, well, that seems to be a fact in light of experience.

A fact worth celebrating, it seems to me. Lot of folks voting who not so many years ago wouldn't be permitted at the polls for a fellow whose name would certainly not have appeared on the ballot. Yep. Worth celebrating. Democrats did that, you know.

If there's any "discounting" being done, I think it's by inference, not implication.

Of course, the comparison rest on recognizing that Barack Obama is, in fact, an African American candidate, thus raising the spectre of "misuse" of race in the campaign. But Barack Obama is an African American candidate, and a lot of smart money's saying he's going to be the next President of the United States of America. That's worth celebrating, too.

And if it happens, it'll be Democrats that do it.

Meanwhile, deep breaths everyone, for the jump from pan to fire. Whee...