Anticipating the charge: “Rich Lowry — Racist!”

It’s a bogus charge that’s been made before (which I guess can be said for most high-profile conservatives), but look for cries of “Rich Lowry is a racist” to resume because of his apt summary of a large part of President Obama’s young presidency in his piece, “The Obama Three-Step”:

Barack Obama has perfected a three-step maneuver that could never even be attempted by a politician lacking his rhetorical skill or cool cynicism.

First: Denounce your presidential predecessor for a given policy, energizing your party’s base and capitalizing on his abiding unpopularity. Second: Pretend to have reversed that policy upon taking office with a symbolic act or high-profile statement. Third: Adopt a version of that same policy, knowing that it’s the only way to govern responsibly or believing that doing otherwise is too difficult. Repeat as necessary.

Lowry provides details on the latest example — presidential signing statements.

So, where will the charge of racism come in?  For capitalizing on the stereotype that blacks can dance, baby! (Just ask the Big O.) Then again, he also points out the hash Obama made of the three-step on earmarks:

Obama has executed versions of his three-step on terrorist surveillance and the Iraq War, and perhaps on Gitmo and interrogation (although the final disposition of those two is not clear). On congressional earmarks, Obama’s three-step was so obvious and clumsy he had to repeat Step 2 — making another promise to fight earmarks even as he accepted 8,500 of them in the omnibus spending bill. 

H/T: HotAir Headlines.

UPDATE: Another three-step.  But I have to wonder if the three-step behind this headline was an accident: Obama Signs Law Banning Federal Embryo Research Two Days After Signing Executive Order to OK It

UPDATE (3/15/09): . . . and another.  Maybe we should call it the “one-a-day three-step.”