PREVIEW OF COMING ATTRACTIONS - AT 7:12 P.M. ET:  The breathtakingly incompetent governor of New York, who took office when the breathtakingly dishonest Eliot Spitzer resigned over a prostitution scandal, now explains the source of the public's discontent with his work:

ALBANY - Gov. Paterson said Friday he knows the reason behind the "crescendo" of calls for him not to seek re-election next year: it's because he's black.

Speaking on a morning radio show hosted by Daily News columnist Errol Louis, an angry Paterson blamed the white-dominated media for pushing him to step aside next year.

"The whole idea is to get me not to run in the primary," he said. Paterson complained there are not enough "black" media outlets to counteract the push.

And get this...

And he suggested that Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, the country's only other African-American governor, also is under fire because of his race.

"We're not in the post-racial period," Paterson said.

"The reality is the next victim on the list, and you can see it coming, is President Barack Obama, who did nothing more than trying to reform a health care system."

Absolutely outrageous.  Barack Obama and Deval Patrick were elected to their jobs.  So was Paterson, as part of the Spitzer ticket in New York.  Now, if racism is behind public discontent, how did these guys ever get elected in the first place?

Look, I have no doubt whatsoever that there are racists out there, and that they'll give any black official a hard time.  But the reality is that we have overcome, and the non-racists vastly outnumber the bad guys.  African-American officials, though, must take the same responsibility for their actions as anyone else.  Otherwise, they make it harder for other African-Americans.

Paterson's comments are absurd.  He's a gross incompetent and shouldn't even run again.  But you can be sure that there is a core group of leftists and race industry activists who will slap the "racist" label on anyone who will criticize, say, President Obama.  It's already happening.  It makes the fight against real racism that much harder, which is the sadness.

August 21, 2009