WTF???? " AVOTE FOR JOHN KERRY IS A VOTE FOR RACISM AND ANTI-SEMITISM"?

On the road with Michael Medved on the radio. I usually tend to think that Medved is one of the more intellectual and reasoned wingers (maybe it's just because he doesn't rant a la Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Ingraham, Beck et al), but after today I place him firmly among the rolls of the manipulative and disingenuous.

The theme of today's show: if you're African-American or Jewish and you want to vote in favor of racism, anti-Semitism and the destruction of Israel, vote for John Kerry. Exhibit 1: cartoonist Jeff Danziger's frame of a thick-lipped Condi Rice sitting in a chair cradling an aluminum tube as she would a baby. Caption: "I knows nothin' about aluminum tubes" or somesuch. I have to take Medved's word for it, since the Danziger web site has apparently removed the offending cartoon. Now note that Danziger has nothing to do with the Kerry campaign whatsoever and says his toon was suggested by an African-American friend of his (it's supposed to be a riff on Gone With The Wind's Prissy, who famously said, "I don't know nothin' about birthin' no babies"). It SOUNDS offensive to me (and if MM's crusade gets picked up by the SCLM, I expect that Kerry will denounce it). But by what stretch does Medved connect that with Kerry or the Democratic Party, which has fought the Republicans for at least a half century to preserve and extend the same rights to minorities that white citizens take for granted?

Exhibit 2 of Democratic racism: the Dem campaign against Repug voter suppression activities. See, that shows we don't respect African-Americans since we're suggesting that they can't fend for themselves.

As for our supposed anti-Semitism, I missed most of that part since I had to get out of the car and get to a meeting. I did hear, though, that Arafat's remarks about Kerry being better for Palestinians than Furious George, added to today's endorsement of Kerry by American Muslims (they suggested a "protest vote" for JFK), leads one to the inescapable conclusion that Kerry and Democrats are, on the face of it, anti-Semitic. Never mind Iran's overt endorsement of Bush and the Israeli Commission's conclusions that by diverting resources needed to fight the war on terror globally, Bush's war on Iraq has actually made Israel less safe. Never mind that Jewish Americans, with Democratic support, have been at the forefront of many, perhaps all, of America's most significant progressive accomplishments such as civil rights and the union movement. They know that the Republicans have historically, and consistently, stood in opposition. How can the two groups have much of an affinity?

That's all I heard.