The "great" skin color debate returns

An article in Folio magazine said that some "cable news pundits" were asking if Rolling Stone had whitened the image of Obama to make him more palatable to the public and its readers. The article did not mention which cable news pundits made that argument, but it wasn't the first time when the presidential candidate's skin color -- or an alleged change in the skin color -- became a topic of public conversation.

A few weeks ago, Daily Kos reported that Hillary Clinton's campaign had "darkened Obama's skin tone" in an anti-Obama advertisement. The article also accused the Clinton camp of "stretching the video horizontally to give Obama a wider nose."

A detailed article on the same site compared the Clinton ad to the infamous TIME magazine cover that darkened O.J. Simpson's skin color and even analyzed the original source video footage and the measurements from which the ad was made.

On another site, John Ararvosis of AmericaBlog even went so far as to compare three different videos of the source footage for the Clinton ad.

Until last Tuesday's speech, the Obama campaign had mostly avoided major public speeches on race in an effort to portray the senator as more than just a black candidate. Obama stayed away from the "Jena 6" protest marches last year and skipped Tavis Smiley's annual "State of the Black Union" event last month.

Although Barack Obama hasn't talked a lot about race, others in the media and in the blogosphere have. Witness the comment by one reader on the Rolling Stone web site. "How convenient of Obama to show up this election year! What could be better for our sex-fearing housewives and white guilt-ridden poplace [sic] than a light skinned bi-racial male with absolutely no physicality or sexuality," the reader writes.

"I'd like to see the day people get behind a really dark, deep voiced, beefy black man for any type of position that involves real power," the reader continues, arguing that the push for Obama is "really a push for the continuation of closeted racism."

But it's also noteworthy that most of the readers who posted comments on the site did not mention Obama's race or skin color. Whether the public can continue to focus on the man and not on his race remains to be seen in light of the recent controversy over his association with his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Last week's controversy did have some impact on his campaign. The percentage of Americans who believe that Obama can unite the country dropped by 15 points, from 67 percent last month to 52 percent last week, according to a CBS News poll out on Friday.

But there is a sign of hope for Obama. Sixty-nine percent of voters who heard or read about the speech said he did a good job, according to the poll. And despite all the controversy, 63 percent of voters following the events said they agreed with Obama's views on race relations.