The Chicago Sun-Times today includes Mary Mitchell's column, "We can deny it, but race slithers into campaign."  The subheadline reads "Obama, his campaign trying to transcend it -- but can't."  The article makes a startling assertion about Senator Barack Obama:

Obama tries to avoid talking about race, as do his surrogates, staffers and supporters.

Say what?  Obama's recent remarks that he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills" clearly referred to his race.  Even his chief strategist admits that.

And it was hardly the first time he introduced the subject. In June, Mitchell's colleague Lynn Sweet mentioned a pool report from the New York Times's John Broder:

On the eve of the Iowa caucuses, NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd disclosed that the media was poised to take a third-place McCain finish there and use it to catapult him to victory in New Hampshire. McCain actually finished fourth in Iowa, but on Good Morning America today we saw a perfect example of the phenomenon Todd predicted.

ABC declared that McCain is "surging," "rising in the polls," may have "the most momentum," used "The Mac Is Back" as its screen graphic, and portrayed Mitt Romney in a highly unflattering light. There was only one small problem with ABC's depiction of a McCain surge: the latest poll numbers from the organization that nailed the Iowa results . . . reveal that McCain slipped in the polls overnight and lost ground to Mitt Romney.

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