Via the G. Gordon Liddy Show (hardly part of the Obama network), I learned about an interesting column titled "Why the Clintons Play the Race Card":

They want to nudge--even provoke--Barack Obama into becoming the "black" candidate rather than the healing, unity candidate. They want black supporters to raise their voices on his behalf--preferably the Al Sharpton types who will shrilly cry "racism" and thus exacerbate the divide.

That's why Billary changed the conversation in New Hampshire, risking some anger against them in the black communities--anger they know would be assuaged in a general election. Okay, let him carry South Carolina, as long as he is tagged with Afrocentrism.

Why, they can even deny that this has anything to do with race. Quite the contrary. The Clintons are actually the ones who are able to "transcend" race. It's Obama who's obsessed. (I mean, come on, he's the one with the black skin, right? And you know how obsessed we all are about race! Maybe it's not time for all this racial disharmony yet. Not while we still have Hillary to save us from it.)

They're not really racists--they just want to stress that Obama hasn't really transcended race--and that a person of color may not be electable. Think about it folks. Over and over again.

You don't want to "roll the dice"--in Bill's quaint phrase--for a guy who might turn out to be a captive of Al Sharpton or even Jesse Jackson, do you? Maybe you'll switch, just like some of those white New Hampshireites apparently did.

If you don't get the message today, they'll find a new way to say it tomorrow.

But speaking of tomorrow, I'd like to know who's playing the Ross Perot card.

MORE: Here's Margaret Carlson on Al Sharpton "helping" Barack Obama:

Sharpton has done things to redeem himself in recent years, but his presence is a one-way ticket back to Tawana Brawley, boycotts, shakedowns and good old-fashioned, in-your-face confrontational race-based politics. Seeing him in that box on TV, I realized that the Clintons had done what they needed to do to stop Obama's historic surge in its tracks.

From the start of his career, Obama wanted, and needed, to remove the race card from the political deck. While it isn't clear from whose sleeve the card was pulled, it is likely it wasn't from the person with the most to lose.