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Still No Tape From Larry Johnson, But We Do have a Decent Measurement of How Bad Things are for the Democrat Party

An interesting admission on this Obama tape thing I mentioned yesterday and the day before, from Jim Geraghty at NRO: [1]

The preponderance of the evidence now suggests that there’s nothing there. One of the arguments that made me think there was some fire amid the smoke was the statement on Booman Tribune, attempting to explain that “why’d he” was being heard as “whitey.” This sort of explanation suggested that someone — perhaps allied with the Obama campaign? Someone in attendance of the event? — wanted to explain what people would be hearing on the tape, which suggested that there was a tape, and that some words that sounded like “why’d he”/”whitey” could be heard. The listing of specifics of the comment — Medicaid/Katrina/Jena/Iraq — also suggested someone had heard the comment, and wanted to put it in context…

But now I find that apparently Booman Tribune was merely paraphrasing another blogger’s prediction of what would be on the tape if it ever surfaced. No one claimed to have seen the tape. (That will teach me to put any stock in anything written on a liberal blog.)

Well, yeah, which is exactly why I made it a point to suggest that Booman [2]wasn’t exactly credible, either.

Beyond that, though comes the real issues:

Without that, what are we left with? Larry Johnson, a vehemently pro-Hillary and anti-Obama blogger, who in the past was running around telling people Karl Rove was about to be indicted. Republican political consultant Roger Stone, saying he believes it exists. I’m hearing from other reporters that their (secondhand, of course) sources are calling back and adding that they saw Louis Farrakhan on the tape, a detail that they didn’t mention before Johnson’s update of 9 this morning. Does the presence of Farrakhan seem like a detail that’s easy to forget?

Look, whatever. If you read what I”ve been saying these last few days, I’m not all that excited, either way. That the tape exists or not is not important. It really isn’t. If it does, fine. If it doesn’t, then we have another situation where the fabricators like Larry Johnson are exposed as such. He’s done it before, which is one reason I didn’t jump on the story with both feet anyway.  I’m fine with that either way.

The big story here to my mind is that so many Democrats are willing to believe that it does exist… and are willing to accept the idea that the Obamas are extreme racists.  It’s as I said yesterday:

Even assuming Johnson comes up with nothing, what have we got? Perhaps this can be best described by historical comparison.

Think back… to the big arguments during the first Clinton misadministration, when we were faced with rumors about how Clinton had raped at least one woman on his way to the Oral Office.

The surpising factor there to me, was the number of people… even his supporters… who were not surpised by the charges. It’s a measurement of the reputation of the Clintons I think… what people are really thinking about them… as good as any.

It occurrs to me that by the same token, the part of this Johnson bit that is perhaps of greatest import… is the number of voters.. particularly the Democrat voters, apparently… who wouldn’t put such racism and hate as has been reported, past Michelle Obama.

That kind of mistrust doesn’t bode well for the vote.

I do not suggest that Johnson has added anything of impact to this race. What I’m suggesting is that he’s revealed a split within the Democrat party that will play heavily come November… it’s a split that if the Democrat party had a better choice than Hillary Clinton as an alternative, to Obama, would have been out there for all to see.

As it is, Johnson provides a measurement of the split, and proof it exists that even the Democrat party itself can no longer ignore if it wants to survive untill November. Indeed, I wonder if any official reaction at this point will be a curative, or will simply make things worse.