Raaaaacist! 'Obama Should Mind His Own Business'

Oh, wait a minute. It can't be raaaaacist when a black politician criticizes another, can it? But if a white one says 'you lie' then it is?

Can someone lay out the rules for who can criticize Obama? We're all walking around on eggshells trying to avoid the perception of being raaaaacist, and we just can't have our betters on the left pointing fingers.

So in this case, we'll just let a black man do the criticizing after Obama threw the black Governor of New York under the bus.

It was all over after Gov. Paterson played the race card.

Sources familiar with President Obama's shocking effort to force Paterson out of the 2010 elections told The Post yesterday that the governor's rant last month about racial bias in the media spurred the move.

"If there's one thing that sealed the governor's fate, it was the racial comments, which is just what the president doesn't need," said a prominent New York Democrat. "It was a stupid statement. It wasn't true, it damaged the president, and the governor's paying the price for it now."

The White House had grown increasingly concerned that Paterson's weakness could hurt the party's majorities in Congress and encourage Republican Rudy Giuliani to pursue the Governor's Office as a platform for a White House run in 2012, sources told The Post.

Then, in August, Paterson caused a national furor during a rambling radio interview in which he accused a white-dominated media of waging an "orchestrated" campaign to force him and other prominent black Democrats from office.

How's that for some irony? Obama's surrogates all over the media have been shamelessly playing the race card from the bottom of the deck the past couple of weeks, and now Obama's concerned that Paterson's playing the race card is going to hurt Democrats.

Well, not so much Democrats, but him in particular. It's all about The O.

Publicly, however, Paterson supporters refused to accept reports that the president wants to push the governor aside, even though the White House by yesterday evening had issued no official denial.

"It's only a report from reporters," said US Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Harlem). "There's absolutely no evidence to substantiate this, but all of a sudden, it's a news story."

City Councilman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn) said: "Obama should mind his own business. He's got enough to take care of in Washington. We don't need him to tell us who our governor should be."

Obama, naturally, is looking out for himself, the main reason Paterson today has tire tracks all across his back.

Obama knows that Paterson is the most unpopular governor in the United States, and -- given the problems that are racking so many states -- that's saying a lot.

And Obama, concerned with his own declining poll numbers, knows Paterson is so inept that virtually every Democratic elected official is holding his/her breath fearing the governor will cost the party key elective offices next year -- as well as the crucial control (from a redistricting point of view) of the state Senate.

But most importantly, Obama realizes that the only thing that could stand between his own re-election in 2012 and a direct challenge from former mayor and potential Republican gubernatorial and presidential contender Rudy Giuliani -- the man who defeated New York City's first black mayor -- is Attorney General Cuomo, the state's most popular politician and one who unfailingly beats Giuliani in the polls.

The way things are going for Democrats, they're getting way ahead of themselves thinking Cuomo can just coast to victory against Giuliani, if indeed Giuliani runs.

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