Since January, the Clintons have pummeled Barack Obama with racially tinged comments and questions about his character.

Hillary Clinton has questioned why he didn’t walk out on the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.; why he “denounced” but didn’t “reject” Louis Farrakhan; and whether he is too chummy with the former radical Bill Ayers. She chastised his characterization of white working-class voters as being highfalutin and chided him for not agreeing to a street-fight-style debate.

Bill Clinton has called Obama’s stance on the war a fairy tale, dismissed an early primary win as mere Jesse Jackson redux and recently claimed that Obama was playing the race card against him. Some of this is valid, the result of Obama’s own missteps, but some of it is baffling.

The rhetoric appears to be trafficking in old fears and historic stereotypes. The unspoken (and confusing) characterization of Obama is that he’s militant yet cowardly; uppity yet too cool for school.