3am and D.W. Griffith?

As Ryan Lizza observed in this week's New Yorker,"It is tempting to say that the Clinton campaign’s plan is to burn the village in order to save it—that Hillary Clinton believes that Democrats, hypnotized by Obama, are making a historic mistake from which only she can rescue them. And it is tempting to add that this means the political destruction of the man who is still most likely to be the Democratic nominee."

There are lots of reasons for criticizing the Clintons' campaign tactics. There's the Orwellian spin (the latest: Maggie Williams' statement that the campaign was"thrilled" with losing Wyoming by 23 points, or Ed Rendell's claim that it was tougher for Clinton to have run against"uncommitted" in the Michigan primary than against Obama or Edwards)—an approach that only serves to suggest that politicians will say anything, thereby devaluing political rhetoric. There's the Clintons' willingness to assert that the other party's nominee is more qualified to be President than their rival, thereby effectively functioning as a stalkinghorses for John Mcain. There's the repeated call for the party to change rules midstream and seat the Florida and Michigan delegations. There's the bizarre (though undoubtedly poll-tested) calls for a"dream ticket" headed by the candidate currently running in second place.

Then there's an op-ed in this morning's New York Times from Harvard sociology professor Orlando Patterson. Patterson critiques the 3am ad—and, as with Clinton's campaign as a whole, there's much to critique. The ad was based on a false premise—that Clinton is somehow much more experienced in national security affairs than Obama, even though neither have served in the military or a civilian post related to national security, and neither have extensive service in the Senate. And the ad's approach was almost Rovian—take Obama's strength (his consistent opposition to the war, even as Clinton voted for the war despite not reading all of the intelligence data available to her) and use it against him.

Patterson, however, takes a different line:"When I saw the Clinton ad’s central image — innocent sleeping children and a mother in the middle of the night at risk of mortal danger — it brought to my mind scenes from the past. I couldn’t help but think of D. W. Griffith’s 'Birth of a Nation,' the racist movie epic that helped revive the Ku Klux Klan, with its portrayal of black men lurking in the bushes around white society."

Patterson claims that the ad tells people that"an Obama presidency would be dangerous — and not just because of his lack of experience. In my reading, the ad, in the insidious language of symbolism, says that Mr. Obama is himself the danger, the outsider within."

We now know something of the images that triggered in Patterson's mind"Birth of a Nation." They were stock photos, filmed almost ten years ago for a regular advertisement (which perhaps explains why much of the ad feels more like a commercial for a nighttime cold medicine than for a political candidate). The first little girl shown is now 17, and an Obama supporter. The Clinton campaign purchased the footage from Getty Images.

Patterson did note that the ad could have"removed its racist sub-message . . . by stating that the danger was external terrorism." Yet the narrative does include a line that that the 3am call (answered by Hillary Clinton in a business suit) dealt with an unstated problem"somewhere in the world."

During this campaign, the Clintons have been all too willing to play the race card. Yet articles such as Patterson's only discredit the critique against the Clintons' campaign, while serving as yet another reminder of how extreme is the race/class/gender discourse that dominates the contemporary academy. [Update: The Clinton campaign responded to the op-ed by claiming that the ad did include an African-American child. In this case, conveniently, an African-American who doesn't look black.]