We’ve been following, with ever-diminishing interest, the flap over the alleged playing of the so-called “race card,” whatever the hell that is, and we’ve got to tell you, we’re confused. Is Sen. John McCain a racist or not? Is Sen. Barack Obama? Just what the hell is going on?

To catch you up, here’s what we know, in chronological order:

On July 31, Obama told crowds (as he’s been telling them for months) that Republicans are trying to scare them out of voting for him, because the only thing their party has left is fear, baby. “Nobody really thinks that [President George W.] Bush or McCain  have a real answer for the challenges we face, so what they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me,” Obama said. “You know, he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He’s risky.”

Side note: Ironically enough, Republicans HAVE said almost all of those things, including saying Obama isn’t patriotic enough (remember flag-pin gate?), they HAVE made fun of his name (remember the detestable provocateur Ann Coulter?) and they HAVE said he’s risky (including McCain himself).

But, insisting that McCain has never said anything about Obama “not looking like all those other presidents on those dollar bills,” the Republican’s campaign insisted that Obama “played the race card.” (And, to our knowledge, McCain hasn’t said anything remotely approaching the issue of race in a pejorative sense in the campaign.)

“Barack Obama played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck,” said McCain campaign manager Rick Davis. “It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong.”

Side note: Isn’t it interesting that we should hear the echo of O.J. Simpson attorney Robert Shapiro in Davis’s remarks? Shapiro, lamenting his role in the not guilty verdict in Simpson’s murder case, was the first to coin the “…from the bottom of the deck,” lingo, to illustrate the use of race as an inappropriate diversion from the truth. So, too, it seems is Davis trying to divert us from the reality of what Obama was actually saying. It buttresses our personal theory that, in eight cases out of 10, when somebody claims something is racist, they’re trying to make a cynical political play. 

Anyway, Obama set the record straight by noting that he thinks McCain is cynical, not racist. And that’s probably an accurate enough description of McCain, who has predicted “more wars, my friends, more wars” and who has said, absent casualties, he doesn’t mind if Americans were in Iraq for up to 10,000 years. Sure, McCain opposed making Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a holiday in Arizona, but he apologized for that.

Then, on Aug. 1, McCain said Obama had “retracted” his remarks and thus, “let’s move on.”And, to an extent, Obama did retract his remarks. He admitted the McCain campaign wasn’t using race improperly in the campaign, but he stuck to his statement that the Republican senator was trying to scare voters into thinking Obama was a risky choice. And as we’ve confirmed above, the McCain campaign specifically and Republicans generally are doing exactly that.

So, are we done? Have we established that Republicans, including McCain’s campaign, have used all manner of disreputable attacks against Obama, but have held their tongues when it comes to his race? Are we all agreed that McCain isn’t a racist, and can we now, as McCain suggests, move on?

“John McCain is the whitest candidate you could possibly have,” said comedian George Lopez, in a Saturday Las Vegas campaign appearance on behalf of Obama. “But Barack Obama isn’t the blackest. I’m darker than he is!”

Oh, damn it all. Lopez is playing the race card, and dealing it from, like, the top third of the deck, or something….